turnout

Early voter turnout is exceeding expectations in California’s Nov. 4 special election over redrawing the state’s congressional districts, a Democratic-led effort to counter Republican attempts to keep Congress under GOP control.

“We’re seeing some pretty extraordinary numbers of early votes that have already been cast, people sending back in their ballots,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a livestream with former President Obama on Wednesday.

More than 3.4 million mail ballots have been returned as of Wednesday, with votes from Democrats outpacing ballots from Republicans and Californians registered as not having a party preference, according to a ballot tracker run by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell. Mitchell is deeply involved in the Democratic effort, and drafted the proposed congressional districts on the Nov. 4 special election ballot.

That’s roughly the same number of ballots returned by this time in the White House contest between then-Vice President Kamala Harris and then-former President Trump in 2024, notable because turnout during presidential elections is higher than in other years.

About a million more ballots had been turned in by this point in the unsuccessful 2021 attempt to recall Newsom, but that was during the COVID pandemic.

This year’s turnout is also especially significant because Proposition 50 is about the esoteric topic of redistricting. Redrawing congressional districts is usually a once-a-decade process that takes place after the U.S. census to account for population shifts.

California’s 52 congressional districts currently are crafted by a voter-approved independent commission, but Newsom and other California Democrats decided to ask voters to allow a rare mid-decade partisan gerrymandering to blunt Trump’s efforts in GOP-led states to boost his party’s numbers in the House.

Obama, who has endorsed Proposition 50 and stars in a television ad supporting the effort, on Wednesday said the ballot measure will affect the entire country.

“There’s a broader principle at stake that has to do with whether or not our democracy can be manipulated by those who are already in power to entrench themselves further,” Obama said. “Or, whether we’re going to have a system that allows the people to decide who’s going to represent them.”

About 51% of the ballots that have been returned to date are from registered Democrats, while 28% are from registered Republicans and 21% are from voters who do not express a party preference.

It’s unknown how these voters cast their ballots, but the Democratic advantage appears to give an edge to supporters of Proposition 50, which needs to be passed by a simple majority to be enacted. About 19.6 million ballots — roughly 85% of those mailed to California voters — are outstanding, though not all are expected to be returned.

The current trend of returned ballots at this point shows Democrats having a small edge over Republicans compared with their share of the California electorate. According to the latest state voter registration report, Democrats account for 45% of California’s registered voters, while Republicans total 25% and “no party preference” voters make up 23%. Californians belonging to other parties make up the remainder.

Mitchell added that another interesting data point is that the mail ballots continue to flow in.

“Usually you see a lull after the first wave — if you don’t mail in your ballot in the first week, it’s going to be sitting on the counter for a while,” Mitchell said. But ballots continue to arrive, possibly encouraged by the “No Kings” protests on Saturday, he said.

A spokesperson for the pro-Proposition 50 campaign said they are taking nothing for granted.

“With millions of ballots still to be cast, we will keep pushing to make sure every Californian understands what’s at stake and turns out to vote yes on Nov. 4th to stop Trump’s power grab,” said spokesperson Hannah Milgrom.

Some Republican leaders have expressed concerns that the GOP early vote may be suppressed by Trump’s past criticism about mail balloting, inaccuracies in the voter guide sent to the state’s 23 million voters and conspiracy theories about the ballot envelope design.

“While ballot initiatives are nonpartisan, many Republicans tend to hold on to their ballots until in-person voting begins,” said Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the “No on Prop 50 — Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab” campaign committee. “As this next phase starts — and with nearly two weeks until Election Day — we expect already high turnout to continue rising to defeat Proposition 50 and stop Gavin Newsom’s partisan power grab.”

Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the other major group opposing the proposition, said the data show that the voters who have returned ballots so far are not representative of the California electorate.

“Special elections tend to be more partisan, older and whiter than general elections, which is one of the reasons we’ve been concerned about the speed with which the politicians pushed this through,” she said.

Heavy security presence in Lome amid public anger over leader Gnassingbe’s alleged power grab.

Togo has voted in municipal elections amid reports of voter apathy, after the country was rocked by deadly protests last month.

Polling stations in Togo’s capital Lome were largely deserted on Thursday. The low turnout came after June’s protests against constitutional reforms that could keep leader Faure Gnassingbe in power indefinitely.

Rights groups blamed the police for the deaths of seven marchers in the protests, whose bodies had been fished out from the capital’s rivers by activists.

“People are … afraid of being attacked by protesters for legitimising these elections, or afraid of being dispersed by security forces,” Edem Adjaklo, a voter in the Gakli neighbourhood, told The Associated Press news agency.

“They feel it’s pointless to vote because the results are always the same – predetermined.”

The sense of unease in Lome was reportedly heightened by a heavy police and military presence at major intersections.

Despite a call for demonstrations against Gnassingbe, the streets of the seaside capital were quiet on Thursday.

Gnassingbe has ruled the country since 2005, after the death of his father and predecessor as president, Gnassingbe Eyadema.

The constitutional reforms, approved by a parliament dominated by Gnassingbe’s Union pour le Republic (UNIR) party, swapped the presidential system in the country for a parliamentary one.

Under the reforms, Gnassingbe was sworn in two months ago as president of the Council of Ministers – effectively as prime minister – a role with no official term limits, which would allow him to be re-elected indefinitely.

Critics called it a “constitutional coup”.

Diaspora-based social media influencers and civil society groups had called for a boycott of the elections, the first national vote organised since the constitutional reform.

This year’s bout of protests was triggered after popular rapper and TikToker Tchala Essowe Narcisse, popularly known as Aamron, was arrested for publishing a video where he called for protests to mark the president’s June 6 birthday.

Anger had also been simmering over the state of the economy, widespread unemployment and the repression of government critics.

Public demonstrations have been banned in the country since protests between 2017 and 2018, which saw thousands of protesters taking to the streets in demonstrations tagged “Faure Must Go” and “Togo stands up”.

Although officially a democracy, Togo operates in practice as a militarised state, with the army heavily involved in politics.

July 10 (UPI) — A far greater percentage of voters over 60 have turned out to vote than younger voters, often by margins of 10 to 25 percentage points, in recent elections across Latin America, including Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Brazil, an analysis shows.

This persistent gap is a clear sign of a crisis of representation that especially affects younger generations and fuels abstention as a form of political disengagement across the region.

Voter abstention has been a growing trend since 2010 in national and regional elections. The reasons behind this disengagement vary, but a crisis of representation and rising distrust in political elites — especially among young people — stand out.

“The representative system is in crisis. Society is increasingly distrustful of elites, especially politics as a profession,” Argentine political scientist Adrián Rocha said. He warned that voters between the ages of 18 and 30 are showing growing indifference toward traditional democratic values.

Even in countries where voting is mandatory — such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay — low turnout remains common in regional and internal party elections.

In Argentina, for example, only 53.2% of voters participated in Buenos Aires City’s legislative elections in May 2024. In the 2023 primaries, just 43% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 cast ballots, compared to 71% of those over 60.

In Chile, only 9.16% of registered voters took part in the left-wing presidential primaries this past June. Just 35% of voters aged 18 to 24 turned out for the 2020 constitutional plebiscite, when voting was voluntary.

Similar patterns have emerged in other countries. In the Dominican Republic, abstention in the 2024 presidential election topped 46% — a steady rise compared to previous cycles.

Dominican attorney Allen Peña said the high abstention rate in his country is due “in large part to the lack of quality proposals from candidates — a perception that’s especially widespread among young voters.”

In Guatemala, turnout dropped from to 54% in 2023 from 61% in 2019, with the lowest participation among voters aged 18 to 29.

In Mexico, the judicial election held in June 2025 — the first of its kind in the country — set a record for low turnout: only 10% of eligible voters cast a ballot. While there are no official age breakdowns, analysts and international observers estimate that abstention among young voters exceeded 85%.

In Brazil, despite compulsory voting, more than 30% of voters aged 18 to 24 did not go to the polls in the 2022 presidential election.

Jorge Cruz, vice president of the Esquipulas Foundation, said “electoral abstention in Latin America is a growing phenomenon closely tied to the crisis of democracy. New generations show deep apathy toward politics, which they see as distant, bureaucratic and ineffective at solving their everyday problems.”

He added that many voters no longer see their ballot as a path to tangible change.

The 2024 Latinobarómetro confirms the trend. Although support for democracy rose from 48% to 52% across the region, one in four Latin Americans say they are indifferent to the type of political system.

The generational gap is also striking — only 45% of those under 25 support democracy, compared to 56% of those over 60. Preference for authoritarianism nearly doubles among younger respondents, rising from 13% among those over 60 to 21% among those under 25.

June 28 (UPI) — Saturday’s Budapest Pride march is expected to have drawn record attendance and participation in opposition to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s anti-LGBTQ policies.

The parade is being held in the Hungarian capital amid threats of legal consequences by Orban and the Hungarian government, including a ban on gatherings that promote homosexuality, the BBC reported.

Hungary’s child protection law restricts such gatherings, but Pride march organizers are being joined by Hungarians and politicians from other European nations to support those who identify as LGBTQ.

“This weekend, all eyes are on Budapest,” European equality commissioner Hadja Lahbib told media in Budapest on Friday.

“This is bigger than one Pride celebration, one Pride march,” Lahbib said. “It is about the right to be who you are, to love who you want, whether it is in Budapest, in Brussels or anywhere else.”

March organizers expected between 35,000 to 40,000 people to participate in the march, but the BBC reported said organizers estimated as many as 200,000 people showed up.

Orban and Hungary’s Fidesz party earlier this year enacted the nation’s child protection law and have said it applies to the Pride march and similar events.

The law also bans the display of LGBTQ promotional materials, which might include the rainbow flag.

Orban has said there won’t be a violent police crackdown on the event, but organizers and participants might be subject to legal prosecution afterward. Facial recognition technology could identify participants, each of whom could be fined up to $500.

“The police could break up such events because they have the authority to do so,” Orban told state-run radio on Friday.

“Hungary is a civilized society [and] a civic society,” Orban continued. “There will be legal consequences, but it cannot reach the level of physical abuse.”

Event participants waved Pride flags and signs mocking Orban, including at least one depicting the prime minister in drag.

PM Meloni said she would not vote, and opposition accuses government of dampening interest in immigrant, worker issues.

An Italian referendum on easing citizenship rules and strengthening labour protections has failed after hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni encouraged voters to boycott the vote.

As polls closed on Monday, it emerged that many citizens had heeded Meloni’s call as only 30 percent of the electorate cast their ballots over two days of voting, far short of the 50 percent plus one needed to make the result legally binding.

The outcome was a clear defeat for the centre-left opposition, which had proposed to halve the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship from 10 to five years and to reverse labour market liberalisations introduced a decade ago.

The prime minister said she was “absolutely against” the citizenship proposals, announcing she would turn up at the polls but not cast a vote.

A stated goal of Meloni’s government is to cut irregular immigration, but it has increased the number of immigrant work visas.

The general secretary of the Italian General Confederation of Labour union, Maurizio Landini, slammed the low turnout as a sign of a “clear democratic crisis” in Italy.

“We knew it wouldn’t be a walk in the park,” he said, stressing that millions of Italians had turned up to fight for change.

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party posted on social media that the “only real goal” of the referendum was to bring down the Meloni government, and it added, alongside pictures of opposition leaders: “In the end, it was the Italians who brought you down.”

Opinion polls published in mid-May showed that 46 percent of Italians were aware of the issues driving the referendums.

Activists and opposition parties accused the governing coalition of deliberately dampening interest in sensitive issues that directly affect immigrants and workers.

Campaigners for the change in the citizenship law said it would help the children of non-European Union parents better integrate into a culture they already see as theirs.

Changes to the laws would have affected about 2.5 million foreign nationals.

Other questions in the referendum dealt with labour-related issues like better protections against dismissal, higher severance payments and the conversion of fixed-term contracts into permanent ones.

Opposition forces had hoped that promoting these causes would help them woo working class voters and challenge Meloni, something they have struggled to do since she came to power in 2022.

Many of the 78 referendums held in Italy in the past have failed due to low turnout.

During China’s imperial age, those deemed guilty of the worst offenses were sometimes sentenced to death in a public square by a brutal form of execution known as lingchi. Soldiers — using sharp blades — would slice away pieces of flesh from the accused until they died. Translated, lingchi means “death by a thousand cuts.”

Maybe democracy does die in darkness, as journalist Bob Woodward often suggests. Or maybe democracy’s demise comes in the light of day, in a public forum, where everyone can bear witness. Sometimes those holding the knives are the oligarchs or elected officials drenched in corruption. And sometimes there’s blood on the hands of the people.

On Saturday, voters in San Antonio — the seventh-largest city in the country — are headed to the polls to decide the first open mayoral race since President Obama’s first term. Or at least some voters will be.

In November 2024, nearly 60% of the 1.3 million registered voters in the county cast a ballot in the general election. However, in the local election held last month, barely 10% showed up to the polls. Before anyone starts throwing shade at San Antonio, in Dallas the turnout was even lower.

Lackluster participation in an “off year” election is not new. However, the mayoral race in San Antonio has increased national interest because the outcome is being viewed as a litmus test for both the strength of the Democrats’ resistance and the public’s appetite for the White House’s policies.

Like other big blue cities nestled in legislatively red states, San Antonio’s progressive policies have been under constant assault from the governor’s mansion. And with neither the progressive candidate, Gina Ortiz Jones, or her MAGA-leaning opponent, Rolando Pablos, eclipsing 50% of the vote in May, the runoff has drawn more than $1 million in campaign spending from outside conservative groups looking to flip the traditionally blue stronghold.

The outcome could provide a possible glimpse into the 2026 mayoral race in Los Angeles, should the formerly Republican Rick Caruso decide to run against Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat. When the two faced off in 2022, around 44% of the city’s registered voters went to the polls. Caruso lost by less than 90,000 votes in a city with 2.1 million registered voters — most of whom didn’t submit a ballot.

It is rather astonishing how little we actually participate in democracy, given the amount of tax dollars we have spent trying to convince other nations that our government system is the best on the planet. Capitulating to President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud, many local conservative elected officials have tried to ram through a litany of “voter integrity” policies under the guise of protecting democracy. However, democracy is not a delicate flower in need of protection. It’s a muscle in need of exercise.

“Some people find voting to be a chore,” Michele Carew, the elections administrator for Bexar County — which includes San Antonio — told me. “We need to make voting easier and quite frankly, fun. And we need to get those who don’t feel like their vote counts to see that it does. That means getting out and talking to people in our neighborhood, in our churches, in our grocery stores … about when elections are coming up and what’s at stake locally.”

Carew said that the added outside interest in the city’s election has driven up early voting a tick and that she expects to see roughly a 15% turnout, which is an increase over previous years. It could be worse. The city once elected a mayor with 7% turnout back in 2013. Carew also expressed concern about outside influence on local governing.

“One of the first times I saw these nonpartisan races become more political was in 2020, and so as time goes by it’s gotten even more so. I would like to think once the candidate is elected mayor they remain nonpartisan and do what’s best for the city and not their party.”

In 2024, a presidential election year when you’d expect the highest turnout, 1 in 3 registered voters across this country — roughly 20 million people — took a look around and said, “Nah, I’m good.” Or something like that.

The highest turnout was in Washington, D.C., where nearly 80% showed up. Too bad it’s not a state. Among the lowest turnout rates? Texas — which has the second-greatest number of voters, behind only California.

And therein lies the problem with trying to extrapolate national trends from local elections. Maybe Ortiz Jones will win in San Antonio this weekend. Maybe Caruso will win in L.A. next year. None of this tells us how the vast majority of Americans are really feeling.

Sure, it’s good fodder to debate around the table or on cable news shows, but ultimately the sample size of a mayoral election belies any claims about a result’s meaning. Turnout during an off year is just too low.

One thing we know for certain is most voters in America exercise their right to vote only once every four years. Oligarchs and corrupt officials are not great, but it’s hard for democracy to stay healthy and strong if that’s all the exercise it’s getting.

@LZGranderson

President Sheinbaum labels vote a ‘success’, but experts warn criminals could use it to infiltrate judiciary.

A landmark vote to select judges in Mexico has been labelled a “success” by the president despite a sparse turnout and widespread confusion.

Just 13 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in Sunday’s vote to overhaul the court system. President Claudia Sheinbaum proclaimed that the election would make Mexico more democratic, but critics accused her of seeking to take control of the judiciary, while analysts warned it could open the way for criminals to seize influence.

The vote, a cornerstone policy of Sheinbaum and predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, aimed to fill about 880 federal judicial positions, including Supreme Court justices, as well as hundreds of local judges and magistrates.

But many voters said they struggled to make informed choices among a flood of largely unknown candidates, who were barred from openly disclosing party affiliations or engaging in widespread campaigning.

‘Largely empty’ polling stations

Al Jazeera’s John Holman reported from Mexico City that polling stations were “largely empty”.

“On what the government planned to be a historic day, the majority of Mexicans prefer to do something else,” he said.

Still, Sheinbaum hailed the election as “a complete success” that makes the country a democratic trailblazer.

“Mexico is a country that is only becoming more free, just and democratic because that is the will of the people,” the president said.

The reform, defended by supporters as necessary to cleanse a corrupt justice system, was originally championed by Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Lopez Obrador, who frequently clashed with the old judiciary.

‘Painstaking process’

Experts had warned that turnout would be unusually low due to the sheer number of candidates and the unfamiliarity of judicial voting.

To be properly informed, voters “would have to spend hours and hours researching the track record and the profiles of each of the hundreds of candidates”, said David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego.

That concern was echoed by voters at the polls.

“We are not very prepared,” said Lucia Calderon, a 63-year-old university teacher. “I think we need more information.”

Francisco Torres de Leon, a 62-year-old retired teacher in southern Mexico, called the process “painstaking because there are too many candidates and positions that they’re going to fill”.

Beyond logistical challenges, analysts and rights groups raised fears that powerful criminal groups could use the elections to further infiltrate the judiciary.

While corruption already exists, “there is reason to believe that elections may be more easily infiltrated by organised crime than other methods of judicial selection”, said Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.

Although all candidates were supposed to have legal experience, no criminal record and a “good reputation”, several have been linked to organised crime and corruption scandals.

Rights group Defensorxs identified about 20 candidates it considers “high risk”, including Silvia Delgado, a former lawyer for Sinaloa cartel cofounder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Another candidate, in Durango state, previously served nearly six years in a US prison for drug offences.

Election results are expected in the coming days. A second round of judicial elections is scheduled for 2027 to fill hundreds more positions.

May 31 (UPI) — With three days until the presidential election in South Korea, the candidates are making their final push to replace impeached President Yoon Sook-yeol with more than a third already casting their votes.

The two days of early voting ended at 6 p.m. Friday. Of the 44.3 million eligible South Korean voters, 34.74% have voted, according to the National Election Commission.

This is the second highest turnout since nationwide early voting was introduced in 2014, according to the NEC. It was 36.93% for the 2022 presidential election.

Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung and People Power Party candidate Kim Moon-soo encouraged people to go to the polls early.

In the latest poll, Lee led with 42.9% support followed by Kim with 36.8%, according to Yonhap. Lee Jun-seo, of the minor conservative New Reform Party, came in third with 10.3%.

“The morale at the Democratic Camp is much more energetic, especially after the historic impeachment trial,” David Lee, a Seoul-based journalist, told Al Jazeera. “PPP supporters, on the other hand, are navigating murkier waters.”

South Korean police said this week they had apprehended at least 690 people over related incidents, according to Yonhap.

Lee attended a rally in Pyeongtaek, around 37 miles south of Seoul, on Saturday.

Lee said he has been wearing a bulletproof vest and installed bulletproof glass at campaign rallies after threats on his life.

He called alleged opinion rigging by a far-right group as an “act of rebellion” that must be held accountable.

“How can they be manipulating comments, making fake news in this day and age, and systematically making preparations to ruin the election results,” he asked. “Can this be forgiven? We must root it out.”

On Friday, Lee visited Chuncheon and Wonju in Gangwon Province before heading to Chungju in North Chungcheong Province for his campaign rallies. This marks his first visit to Gangwon during the campaign period.

Kim launched a 90-hour nonstop overnight campaign tour across the country.

Kim, during a rally in the eastern Gangwon Province, called for the “banishing” Lee from politics.

“Lee has been found guilty of lying,” he said. “What would happen [to the country] if he becomes president?”

Kim said he would be a “clean” president if elected.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court sent Lee’s case back to the Seoul High Court for a retrial. They decided the lower court’s decision to acquit Lee of false statements during the previous presidential race in 2021.

Lee, appearing on cable broadcaster JTBC’s YouTube channel, called for a special counsel probe to fully hold accountable those involved in Yoon’s martial law bid.

“To bring the insurrection to a complete end, all those responsible or complicit must be identified and held accountable,” he said.