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(WASHINGTON) — All eyes will be on the key swing states as votes are counted in the match-up between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Both candidates have crisscrossed the seven key swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and worked to appeal to undecided voters and connect with them over the issues that resonate most with them.

While voters in these battleground states share the same concerns as the rest of Americans, there are some issues that stand out as top concerns for their residents — with the economy reigning supreme as a key voter issue with just days left until Election Day.

It’s the economy

“The No. 1 issue is the same as it always is, which is, it’s the economy. And of course, the economy has multiple dimensions to it. We have the growth rate, we have unemployment, we have consumer confidence, and, of course, inflation,” said Todd Belt, director of George Washington University’s Political Management program.

When it comes to the economy, 44% percent of Americans say they’re not as well off now as they were when President Joe Biden took office, tying the most negative number on this question in data since 1986, according to a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Further, while inflation has eased and employment is strong, those gains haven’t hit home for most people: 59% say the economy is getting worse, more than twice as many as say it’s getting better (23%). And among registered voters who say the economy’s worsening, Trump leads Harris by a sweeping 53 points, 74-21%.

A 538 analysis of polls found that virtually all of the swing states have ranked the economy as a top voter issue — some for varying reasons. Still, Belt said the economy is “the No. 1 issue everywhere you go.”

In Nevada, its economy, to a unique degree, depends on the hospitality industry — making the economy a top issue for voters in that state. Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, makes up about 75% of the state’s population — and a significant number of hospitality workers. Likely because of these factors, Nevada voters ranked the economy as the most important issue facing their state, according to poll analysis from 538.

Home prices, fracking, immigration

Housing affordability is another top issue for voters in swing states such as Nevada and North Carolina, where home prices have surged.

The median home price in North Carolina grew from $193,200 in the 2017-19 survey to $280,600 in the 2020-22 survey, the seventh-largest increase in the nation in percentage terms, according to the American Community Survey. And in Nevada, the Home Value Index has grown 34 percent since the start of the Biden presidency, slightly faster than the rate of increase nationwide, according to Zillow.

The cost of groceries, gasoline and housing resonates with voters across several swing states, Belt added.

“The issue of the economy, of course, has to do with the affordability of living. This is what we call, you know, our kitchen table, pocketbook issue,” Belt said. “It has to do deal with groceries, with gasoline. And, of course, what’s been people commenting about most of all is housing costs as well.”

In battleground Pennsylvania, fracking is a big local issue and has ties to both the economy and the environment.

Immigration is another key issue for many swing-state voters — especially those in the Sun Belt. Arizona, a border state, has been a regular campaign stop for Trump and Harris, who have often discussed immigration while there. It’s also top of mind for voters in Nevada — a state where Hispanic and Latinos are the largest minority group with 28% of its population.

“People do have [immigration] on their minds because it has been pushed as a big issue in the media,” Belt said.

Trump has used immigration to hit Harris’ immigration policies, putting the blame squarely on her for the situation at the border as he latches on to his inaccurate reference to her as the “border czar.”

Immigration is often tied to other key issues such as crime, Belt noted — a tactic Trump has employed on the campaign trail.

Despite the fact that U.S. citizens commit crimes at higher rates than undocumented immigrants, Trump painted them as “criminals” who will “cut your throat” at a campaign stop in Wisconsin in September. Also, while in Tempe, Arizona, last week, Trump criticized the Biden-Harris administration for its handling of the border, calling the United States a “garbage can for the world.”

Abortion

Abortion is a key voter issue after the Supreme Court in 2022 overruled Roe vs. Wade, which secured the constitutional right to abortion. The Supreme Court decision, which Trump often brags about his role in, is an issue that Democrats have seized on this cycle.

“The Democrats believe that this is the kryptonite for the Republicans in the last couple of elections,” Belt said.

Abortion remains a rallying issue among Democrats who were able to stave off a “red wave” during the 2022 midterms by centering their messages around it. Harris’ campaign claims reproductive freedom is still one of the top issues among undecided voters.

Several states, including battlegrounds Arizona and Nevada, have ballot measures that would amend their state constitutions with specific language to protect or recognize the right to an abortion for all constituents.

Polls show abortion is a more important issue in Wisconsin than it is nationally, according to poll analysis by 538. The legal status of abortion was hotly contested in the state after the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, leading to a 15-month period in which no legal abortions were performed in the state under an 1849 law that criminalized abortion.

Even with other issues on swing states’ radar, Belt noted that both Harris and Trump work to tie messaging back to the economy.

“You’ll see candidates like Donald Trump talk about how immigration is impacting the economy and jobs,” he said. “And so there are these auxiliary issues that they’re trying to push, but they also tie them to the economy, because they know that’s what voters care about the most.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Election officials across the country are trying to prepare for what’s out of their control.

When millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, some voters might encounter minor issues including equipment malfunctions or delays. Election officials say that they are prepared for those inevitable challenges, which can come up every election year — but that they struggle with the torrent of misinformation that could follow, where bad actors or election skeptics will sometimes use minor issues to amplify unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.

A preview of that problem played out last week in Kentucky when a voter shared a video online of what officials called a “user error” on an electronic ballot-marking machine that created the false impression the device was switching votes from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris. Election officials said the machine produces a paper ballot, which the user then has multiple opportunities to confirm before their vote is scanned — and that the voter who posted the video was able to cast their ballot as intended.

After the machine was taken out of service, Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown shared a video online demonstrating the machine working without issue and said that officials struggled to replicate the error. But the damage was already done, with the original video amassing tens of millions of views on social media, where it was shared by users suggesting that voting machines were being used to rig the election.

Nevertheless, the incident in Kentucky underscores what election experts have been stressing to the voting public: While minor glitches may occur at a few isolated polling places, they are not an indication of widespread voter fraud.

“I hate that this has occurred here in Laurel County,” Brown posted. “We strive to have accurate, secure and safe elections that we are proud to provide to our citizens.”

Anticipating similar issues on Election Day, election officials in some counties have prepared pre-written fact checks that can be shared online to quickly counter misinformation before it spreads.

“If there’s an issue that comes up on Election Day, we can kind of say, like, ‘Here’s something that you might have seen, here’s actually what happened,'” said Samantha Shepherd, communications manager for Loudon County, Virginia. “That’s kind of our crisis communication plan for mis- and disinformation.”

Election workers hope that clear communication and transparency can stem the tide of what Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, describes as a “fire hose of disinformation” targeting the integrity of the country’s elections.

“Election officials have never been better prepared to deliver safe and secure and free and fair elections for the people,” Easterly said.

That security stems in part from built-in redundancies that allow officials to securely administer the election, even if equipment fails.

“We have paper backup nearly in every jurisdiction across this country, so that we can rely on that if technology is not there to assist us,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Across the country, 97% of voters will cast ballots in jurisdictions that provide verifiable paper backups, Easterly said.

That means if an electronic voting machine breaks down, election workers can return to traditional paper ballots, said Derek Tisler, an attorney with the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit think tank. In a case like the ballot-marking device that was at issue in Kentucky, the paper ballot showed that the voter’s selection had to be corrected, which it was before their vote was actually cast.

“The common theme that we see with so many of the backups, specifically for technical issues, is that there is usually a very simple, paper-based system that can keep things moving smoothly until the issue can be resolved,” said Tisler.

Tisler also said there’s increased transparency in the aftermath of the 2020 election, with poll watchers able to oversee most elements of election administration, and election workers often operating in two-person or bipartisan teams.

“We are wide open. You can come in anytime,” said Aaron Ammons, the clerk in Champaign County, Illinois. “The public can come and see the process from A to Z, and I strongly encourage them.”

The decentralized nature of the country’s election infrastructure also protects against widespread fraud, according to experts. Instead of operating under a single nationwide system, elections are generally run on the county level, with some states like Wisconsin and Michigan running elections through thousands of municipal clerks — an arrangement that helps prevent bad actors from causing large-scale systemic problems.

“We have a large and decentralized election system that’s run in counties and cities across the country, and it’s natural that there’ll be some bumps in the road,” said Brian Hinkle, senior voting policy researcher at the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank. “But in the end, these election officials take great pains to make sure the process is accurate, safe and secure.”

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(TALLAHASSEE, FL) — Desmond Meade was recalling to a church congregation in Apopka, Florida, earlier this month a dark time in his life. “Not too long ago, I was standing in front of the railroad tracks, waiting for a train to come so I could jump in front of it,” he said.

That was in 2005, and Meade was addicted to crack-cocaine, homeless, jobless and recently released from prison after he was convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon. Or, as he refers to his status during that time: a “returning citizen.”

The train Meade was going to jump in front of to take his own life never came. He saw it as a sign, crossed the railroad tracks and entered into rehab, later moving into a homeless shelter, earning associate degrees, a bachelor’s, and eventually a law degree from Florida International University.

Now he is the founder of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), an organization that fights for the voting rights of people released from prison and has successfully restored voting rights for more than 1.4 million Floridians through Amendment 4, a 2018 ballot initiative that gives people voting rights if they complete their sentences from felony convictions.

“We don’t use that ‘F’ word because there is a person’s mother, father, sister, brother that lives behind that scarlet letter of shame,” Meade told ABC News during a recent interview at the FRRC offices in Orlando, Florida.

“When you talk about a person who has been impacted by the criminal justice system, they’re not throwaways,” Meade said. “Rather than, when you look at me, see what’s wrong with this country, man, no, you can look at me and see what’s possible with this country. Man, that we are a nation of second chances; that we are a nation of overcoming against all odds.”

Meade travels around the state to different communities in an FRRC bus, implementing programs for people who finished their sentences to expunge their records, register them to vote, find legal services and pay for court fees. His work earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2023, a place on Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2019 and a fellowship for the MacArthur Foundation’s class of 2021.

“The quicker we help a person reintegrate, the least likely they are to re-offend, and everybody benefits from that,” Meade said.

A year after Florida ratified Amendment 4, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 7066, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law, requiring that even after serving their time, those leaving the system need to pay all of the related costs ordered by the court before being eligible to vote. People convicted of murder or felony sexual assault are an exception and are not allowed to vote.

Over the last eight years, Florida has had the largest number of people, out of any state in the country, who have come out of prison and are unable to vote — often because they cannot afford to pay the court-ordered monetary sanctions, according to The Sentencing Project.

In 2022, DeSantis established a new election crime and security unit and announced the arrest of 20 individuals who allegedly had voted after being convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense.

“The state of Florida has charged and is in the process of arresting 20 individuals across the state for voter fraud,” DeSantis announced at a press conference in August 2022.

Neither Gov. DeSantis nor Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd immediately responded to ABC News’ request for a statement.

“At the end of the day, my sons do not stop being my sons,” Meade said about his children when they disappoint him. “And I don’t think that any person should stop being an American citizen just because of a mistake they made, especially when that mistake is like 10, 15, 20 years ago. That doesn’t make sense.”

FRRC’s work is a family affair for Meade, his wife Sheena Meade and their five children, who canvass communities, door-knock and man a phone bank to spread voter education and register people to vote.

The FRRC has raised about $30 million to pay court fees for approximately 44,000 people in Florida who finished their prison sentences. But Meade said it’s not about who people vote for. Rather, he just wants them to get involved in the political process.

“If you’re fighting only for voting rights of people who you think might vote like you, you’re not engaging in democracy work, you’re engaging in partisan work,” Meade said. “Our democracy needs less partisanship and more collective participation.”

Neil Volz, deputy director for the FRRC, was convicted of felony corruption and fraud conspiracy while he was working in Washington, D.C., with now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to the Department of Justice. Volz first met Meade at an FRRC event in Florida.

“I’ll never forget the words he said. He said nobody’s got a monopoly on the pain caused by felony disenfranchisement,” Volz told ABC News during an interview in Apopka, Florida. “The vision that he was casting was much bigger than race, was much bigger than politics, was much bigger than economics.”

Meade said that restrictive voting laws for people who have come out of prison in Florida stem from archaic Jim Crow-era legislation passed when voter suppression of African Americans surged during Segregation. Back then, voting obstacles included poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation tactics – sometimes from law enforcement. But the FRRC founder said that he owes it to those who came before him to uphold the rights for which they fought.

“They did that not for them. They did it for me. And if I don’t vote, then what I’ve said is that they died in vain,” Meade said. “That I was not worth the sacrifice that they made. And I know I am.”

Henry Walker, who was released from prison after serving three years for illegal possession of a firearm, will be voting for the first time ever in the 2024 election because of help from the FRRC.

“FRRC helped to give the opportunities. That’s all it takes is the opportunity to tell my story so that someone like me, a returning citizen, can see it,” Walker told ABC News during an interview in Orlando, Florida. “And tell themselves: ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’”

Barbara Haynes, a woman who finished her prison sentence and fought for 20 years to get her voting rights, was finally able to register to vote with the help of Amendment 4 and the FRRC, according to Meade. At that point, she had less than 6 months to live because of a terminal illness.

“Her dying wish was so basic; she just wanted to feel what it felt like to be a part of something bigger,” Meade said. “To be a part of this democracy.”

Haynes died weeks after registering to vote and before she could cast her ballot, according to the FRRC founder.

“And that just ripped my heart in pieces,” Meade said. “She didn’t get that opportunity. How many people didn’t get that opportunity?”

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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(PHOENIX) — Kristin and Dave Gambardella never expected the journey of growing their family to include an abortion procedure, but in summer 2023, the married couple nevertheless found themselves in a Planned Parenthood parking lot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a seven-hour drive from their home in Tucson, Arizona.

A week beforehand, a routine blood test at 17 weeks into Kristin’s pregnancy had come back with devastating results. A follow-up ultrasound confirmed her doctors’ fears. The fetus had a severe genetic abnormality.

“They told us it was really a guaranteed short life, full of pain and surgeries and constant medical care,” Gambardella said. “Dave is a stoic person,” she said of her husband, “and I remember he just broke down and lost it. And that’s when I really felt that feeling in my gut that was like, wow, this is pretty catastrophic.”

In deciding to end the pregnancy, the Gambardellas realized they weren’t only tasked with an agonizing decision for their family — they also had an Arizona law to contend with, which would prevent them from seeing any of their own doctors for the procedure.

“The doctor, I remember, she looked at me and her eyes just looked really sad. And she said, ‘No, you can’t come here. We can’t do that procedure for you. You’d have to leave the state’,” Gambardella said.

Arizona’s abortion ban

In Arizona — one of 21 states that has enacted abortion restrictions since the end of Roe v Wade — abortion is banned after 15 weeks, except for medical emergencies endangering the life of the mother. Gambardella didn’t qualify for that exception.

“As someone who has always believed in a woman’s right to make decisions about her own bodies, it was such a turning point in my understanding on just how much abortion care is interconnected with fertility care and the act of wanting to have a baby,” Gambardella said.

The experience inspired her to join the campaign to pass Proposition 139, a ballot measure that would enshrine in Arizona’s state constitution the right to an abortion until fetal viability.

Arizona is one of 10 states in the country that have such measures on the ballot this November, including Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and Nebraska.

This large push nationwide comes as abortion access remains one of the most important issues to voters this election — and the top issue for women under 30, according to an October survey by KFF, the nonpartisan health policy organization.

Where the candidates stand

Democrats hope that the issue could drive enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris, who has centered her campaign on restoring reproductive rights and attacking former President Donald Trump for nominating the conservative Supreme Court justices that voted to overrule Roe v. Wade.

Trump, who has repeatedly shifted his position on abortion from supporting a federal ban to declaring that he would not pass one, while remaining open to other reproductive health care restrictions, maintains that he will “protect women,” but is sparse on details.

It’s not clear, however, if abortion-access ballot measures will alter the outcome of the presidential race in a swing state like Arizona. Voters could split the ticket — voting to enshrine abortion access, but prioritizing other issues in their presidential choice.

Trump is leading Harris in Arizona by two points, according to 538’s latest polling average, even as polling so far has shown the abortion access amendment in Arizona to be widely popular, with about 60% of likely voters saying they’ll support it.

That level of support is in line with the success of abortion rights ballot measures in other states over the last two years since Roe v. Wade was overruled. Reproductive rights ballot measures have passed every time they’ve been on the ballot, whether the state leans Republican, Democrat or is closely divided like Arizona.

Susan Ashley, a retiree and a volunteer for the Arizona for Abortion Access campaign, says her “fury” over Roe vs. Wade being overturned drove her to make the initiative her “full-time job right now.”

“I’ve been an active voter, but I’ve never been involved in an event where there were so many passionate volunteers. And so this struck a nerve,” Ashley said.

Efforts on the ground

Athena Salman, a former Arizona state representative and director of Arizona campaigns for Reproductive Freedom for All, was at Ashley’s side for door-knocking in mid-October, in the 90-degree heat.

The two women spoke to nearly a dozen registered Independents in a neighborhood of Chandler, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Each voter they spoke to said they were supporting the ballot measure.

“I think it really shows that Arizonans are just fed up with their reproductive freedom being up in the air and they’re ready to take action and get the government interference out of our personal decisions,” Salman said.

Though Arizona currently bans abortion at 15 weeks, the state saw all abortions halted for four months in the summer of 2022 when a ban from 1864 was revived. It nearly took effect again in the spring of 2024, but the Arizona state legislature repealed it after massive outcry from residents and a push from the Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes.

To Cindy Dahlgren, spokesperson for the campaign against the abortion access ballot measure, the legislature’s decision to repeal the near-total abortion ban and keep a 15-week ban should put people at ease.

“Proponents play on those fears and that confusion by saying there’s a ban when there’s not a ban,” she said, arguing that the current law only curtails the procedure but doesn’t fully ban it. “I would also point out that it was the legislature that repealed that law. And there doesn’t seem to be an appetite to put that law back in.”

Her campaign, called “It Goes Too Far,” argues that enshrining abortion access until fetal viability would remove too many restrictions around abortion, leaving it too unregulated.

“The choice really in November is not between abortion or no abortion. It’s between limited abortion and safety precautions and a doctor and parents involved or unlimited and unregulated abortion,” Dahlgren said.

Asked about cases like Gambardella’s, where pregnancy complications arise in the second trimester, or women who experience rape or incest and do not qualify for an exception, Dahlgren said, “we do not have to enshrine a very extreme abortion amendment to care for those victims.”

But Dr. Misha Pangasa, an OB-GYN with Planned Parenthood, one of only nine clinics in Arizona providing abortion care, said she doesn’t want to leave reproductive rights up to the political makeup of the state legislature anymore.

“The idea that Arizonans health care is at the whims of whichever legislature is holding the majority is never going to be the best way for people to get the best care,” Pangasa said.

There are currently around 40 laws that restrict abortions in the state of Arizona, which Pangasa said have already significantly impacted her ability to provide care to pregnant patients.

“Pregnancy is complicated and decisions at various stages are hard. And I am the one there helping support them. And what I wish that our government would do is just let me,” Pangasa said.

Pangasa said she sees patients like the Gambardellas on a regular basis.

“To be honest, it’s a really heartbreaking moment to be in when I talk to my patients and say, if you were in a different state with me right now, I would tell you that these are your options. But because we’re in Arizona, an abortion is just not an option,” she said.

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