“I’ve noticed that some of the candidates who have come forward recently have chosen slander, negative campaigning and things like that. I don’t want those people to represent me at the highest level,” says Quonn Bernard, a 39-year-old engineer met at the opening of a polling station in Union City, a predominantly African-American town near Atlanta, Georgia.
“I came here to vote today because my ancestors, many of my ancestors, whether they were black or female, were not allowed to vote,” said Kuanna Harris, a 26-year-old lawyer who came to she too cast her ballot at seven o’clock in the morning in this southern state still marked by the wounds of segregation and considered as a hinge for the control of the Senate.
– “Pretty normal” day –
In Phoenix, Arizona, one of the polling stations located in a downtown library encountered problems Tuesday morning with its machines responsible for printing ballots, AFP journalists noted. Only voters who had already prepared their ballot sealed in an envelope could deposit it, the others were asked to go to another office 500 meters away.
Enough to reinforce the mistrust of some Arizonans, in this southwestern state where Joe Biden’s presidential victory in 2020 continues to be contested by Republican candidates, despite several audits and recounts having demonstrated the validity of the results.
“This machine should have been tested a long time ago, last week,” grumbles Donald Newton, an octogenarian Republican who managed to vote in the neighboring office, and firmly believes that the 2020 election “was stolen” .
Despite some technical problems, “I think we’re going to have a fairly normal day of voting”, tempers Kenneth Bellows.
This 32-year-old law student also voted Republican, because he is disappointed with the economic management of President Joe Biden. The United States is suffering the worst inflation in 40 years and “it handicaps Americans who are just trying to get by,” he said.
– Stay “civilized” –
On leaving the polling station, Mona Sablan says she gave her voice to the Democrats, because for this 56-year-old nurse, the only thing that matters, “is the right to abortion”, particularly threatened in Arizona since the Supreme Court allows each American state to adopt its own rules on the matter.
In McAllen, a town in Texas on the border with Mexico, Enrique Ayala, a 64-year-old retiree, hopes that “everyone will be civilized and that all parties will accept their victories or their defeats”.
A small queue formed at 7 a.m. inside the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in Pittsburgh, a large industrial city in the state of Pennsylvania, considered decisive for the Senate.
“There is so much polarization and misinformation that I want to make sure my voice is heard,” said Robin Girdhar, a 61-year-old doctor, coffee mug in hand. “It’s worrying, the rhetoric on both sides seems very extreme,” he adds, not hiding his choice for the Democrats.
“There are really important issues at stake,” said Alexandra Ashley, a 30-year-old lawyer. “Abortion is probably the most important to me.”
“Some want to weaken democracy. And that’s something we can’t afford to lose,” adds this other Democratic voter.
