Newsletter Archive

It’s democracy in action today as up to 100 million Americans are expected to vote to elect the next U.S. president. More than 46 million ballots have already been cast in states that allow early voting. By early Tuesday evening, the first vote counts will be disclosed from eastern states in the United States, even as voting continues in the western part of the country.

Republican Donald Trump may have awakened a ‘sleeping giant’ when he described Mexican immigrants as ‘rapists and murderers’ last year. Although Hispanics have lagged other ethnic groups when it comes to voting — fewer than half of eligible Latino voters made it to the polls in 2012 — they’ve turned out in record numbers to vote early this election season. That’s led to speculation that Hispanics could affect the outcome of the presidential race in some key states, including Texas, where we checked in with some Latino voters.

Asian-Americans could tip the scales in hotly contested states like Nevada, Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. After doubling their voter registration numbers over the last decade, Asian-Americans aren’t just going to the polls, they’re also showing up on the ballot.

Cybersecurity analysts are sounding the alarm about the U.S. election system, calling it porous and ‘painfully vulnerable’ to cyberattacks. Some experts warn that even moderately talented hackers could throw the results of the 2016 presidential election into chaos.

‘The Americans have enough problems without us.’ That’s the word from Russian officials, who say they had nothing to do with the hacking of Democratic Party computers, or the WikiLeaks release of Clinton campaign emails that U.S. intelligence says comes from Russia’s secret services. VOA is in Moscow, where the next phase of the Kremlin’s take on America’s elections is taking shape: Whoever the victor, the outcome will show how broken and corrupt American democracy has become.

Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton ran active social media campaigns designed to influence voters they might not have reached otherwise. That robust social media engagement could end up becoming a blueprint for the future, in the United States and elsewhere, as more politicians come to believe that campaigns can be won or lost on social media.

Once the election is over and the results are in, attention shifts to the transition. The peaceful, orderly transfer of power is a hallmark of U.S. Democracy. It’s also a technical feat to ensure no gap in governing occurs after a presidential election.

VIDEO: The topic of illegal immigration provokes plenty of heated emotion but perhaps nowhere more than among young people known as ‘Dreamers’ — people who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents as very young children. Their fate has become intertwined with the larger national conversation on immigration and they don’t dare leave the country for fear they’ll never be allowed to return.