Huge voter turnout expected despite virus, political rancor

The scourge of a global pandemic produced an election season like no other in the U.S., persuading record numbers of Americans to cast their ballots early, forcing states to make changes to long-established election procedures and leading to hundreds of lawsuits over how votes will be cast and which ballots will be counted. Polls began opening on the East Coast Tuesday as election officials warned that millions of absentee ballots could slow the tallies, perhaps for days, in some key battleground states and as President Donald Trump threatened legal action to prevent ballots from being counted after Election Day. “Come hell or high water,” said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.