Some election results may be delayed and more news from the states

Good evening. It may be days or even weeks after the Nov. 3 election before the country knows the results of Maine’s closely-watched U.S. Senate race. With two candidates on the ballot and six declared write-in options, voters can use ranked-choice voting, which could lead to a runoff.

In Washington, D.C., Democrats have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, alleging his administration has been interfering in the midterms by intimidating election officials.

Missouri physicians and patients are concerned that although a proposed constitutional amendment to reinstate an abortion ban contains exceptions, lives could be lost if doctors don’t know when they can intervene.

A polling company said this week the results of some of its primary polls – including one in the Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate race – were an “experiment” meant to test whether media outlets would report the data without verifying the source.

The winner of Maine’s U.S. Senate seat might not be known for days or weeks after the Nov. 3 election because the odds favor a ranked-choice runoff, Maine Morning Star reports.

While only two candidates, incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic nominee Troy Jackson, will appear on the ballot, the six declared write-ins prompt ranked-choice voting, meaning voters can rank three names on their ballot.

If a voter writes in the name of someone who isn’t a declared write-in candidate — such as former Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner, who dropped out in July — their vote will not be counted for any candidate. Counted as blanks, those votes, along with ballots where the first choice is left blank, still matter in determining whether the race goes to a runoff.

National Democrats are suing President Donald Trump, accusing his administration of intimidating election officials and asking a federal court to block him from interfering in the midterm elections, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports.

The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday in Washington, D.C., comes as the Trump administration mounts a highly public offensive against voter fraud in California just two weeks before Election Day and as federal agents face allegations they are questioning people at their homes about their voter status.

The Department of Justice has sued state and local officials, demanding they not count the ballots of roughly 20,000 California voters that the DOJ alleges are noncitizens and suggesting they will face prosecution if they do. The Trump administration is currently scrutinizing an additional 17,000 California voters, according to a court filing.

A proposed amendment on the Missouri ballot would repeal the reproductive rights amendment voters approved in 2024 and reinstate an abortion ban with some exceptions. But some physicians, attorneys and patients say those exceptions could prove difficult to implement in practice, leaving doctors uncertain about when they can intervene, Missouri Independent reports.

After Missouri banned nearly all abortions in 2022, certified registered nurse anesthetist Valerie Weaver began noticing a troubling change in some of the pregnant patients she cared for in Kansas City. They were arriving to her sicker.

“That law made it so where we couldn’t care for the mother until she had an active threat against her life,” she said.

Now Weaver fears those conditions could return after the Nov. 3 election.

Kentucky: A Lexington-based nuclear energy startup is proposing to build a massive nuclear power plant complex along the Ohio River. If fully realized, the 6.6-gigawatt facility would be the largest nuclear power plant site in the country and the first nuclear power plant in the state.

South Dakota: A Democrat’s campaign finance report shows some of his contributions coming from across the political divide as he campaigns for South Dakota secretary of state, after the Republican incumbent endorsed him. 

Nevada: Over the last decade, there have been just 11 instances of election fraud in the state – out of nearly 9 million votes cast – according to a new report from UNLV. The report used data compiled from the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation, Brookings Mountain West and Lincy Institute at UNLV.

Idaho: The reelection campaigns of Republican Attorney General Raúl Labrador and Gov. Brad Little received more than $20,000 each in donations from tobacco and nicotine manufacturers. The donations come after Labrador struck a deal in 2024 with manufacturers to not fight in court about settlement payments that tobacco manufacturers tend to dispute.

Kansas: The company behind a pilot nuclear project near Parsons is under fire after a report said it is underestimating costs, overestimating the project’s energy efficiency and promoting an unrealistic timeline. The report, which assessed publicly available financial information to look for irregularities, called Deep Fission a “money pit.”

North Dakota: A state lawmaker is working on proposed legislation to regulate some of the more controversial aspects of data centers in the state. Republican Rep. Anna Novak said the framework of her bill focuses on the cost of electricity, water use and requirements for when a facility is decommissioned. 

Utah: A progressive advocacy group is calling on a Utah Supreme Court justice to recuse himself from the state’s ongoing anti-gerrymandering court battle after reports that he signed a petition to repeal Utah’s 2018 voter-approved independent redistricting law before he was appointed to the bench. 

Georgia: The state’s ability to transform its 911 system to incorporate new technology may depend on the outcome of one of three ballot questions this year. A proposed constitutional amendment would create a designated fund that could be earmarked by lawmakers to modernize the 911 system statewide.

National: A string of high-profile deaths and injuries involving electric scooters and bikes is spurring states and cities across the country to crack down on them. Regulations, many of which were written to manage low-speed rideshare scooters nearly a decade ago, haven’t kept pace, some experts say, and they’ve left officials scrambling to do more.

New Mexico: A district judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in penalties for violating state law regarding unfair and deceptive trade practices. The decision follows a Santa Fe jury’s finding in late September that Facebook, which is owned by Meta, committed close to 44 million violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act.

A view Tuesday of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from the soon-to-open Holly Beach Farm Natural Resources Management Area. (Photo by Christine Condon/Maryland Matters)

The Maryland Park Service opened its newest public land this week, a 293-acre property known as Holly Beach Farm that overlooks the Chesapeake Bay, less than 10 miles from downtown Annapolis. The land boasts wooded hiking trails, small bayfront beaches, farm fields and a 9-acre freshwater pond, along with scenic views of cars and trucks humming along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and sailboats and ships passing beneath it.

For now, the state plans to allow about 20 individuals per day to access the site by reservation only. Officials from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources say they’ve set aside $3 million for repairs and enhancements, which will include a lengthened fishing pier and a new 6-foot berth to accommodate larger vessels like ferries carrying tourists and groups of schoolchildren.

Read more from Maryland Matters.

The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday denied the Trump administration's emergency request to implement a rule that would terminate gender-affirming care for transgender people incarcerated in federal prisons, the D.C. Bureau reports.

It means a lower court order that blocked the policy from going into effect will remain in place for now, and gender-affirming healthcare for transgender inmates will continue.

The order did not give an explanation. But conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas noted that they would have sided with the Trump administration’s request to stop treatments by lifting a lower court's injunction.

The suit stems from President Donald Trump’s executive order that prevented the Bureau of Prisons from providing gender-affirming care to transgender inmates.

Voters in six states are considering ballot measures in the midterm elections that would make it clear that only U.S. citizens may vote — and block local governments from expanding that right to others, Stateline reports.

Proposed constitutional amendments in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota and West Virginia would explicitly bar noncitizens from voting. Federal law already does this for federal elections, and no state allows noncitizens to vote in statewide elections.

So why the need for constitutional amendments? Sponsors of the amendments — primarily Republicans — say they want to preemptively bar cities or other local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, as municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont have done.

State and local government employees report high levels of job satisfaction across the country, but face significant rates of burnout and on-the-job harassment, Stateline reports.

That’s according to a new national survey of nearly 5,000 public servants across all 50 states released Wednesday by The People Lab at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Researchers say the survey, which includes respondents from hundreds of local governments, provides the nation’s most comprehensive analysis of workplace conditions in local governments.

Most employees reported high levels of job satisfaction: 82% said they were at least somewhat satisfied with their job, while 60% said they were satisfied or very satisfied.

But 40% of employees also reported experiencing at least one symptom of burnout. And 27% said they intended to leave their jobs in the next 12 months.

Wedgewood Polls was among several firms that released data during the 2026 Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate showing eventual nominee Abdul El-Sayed well ahead of his rivals. But Wedgewood now says the poll’s data was fake and was an “experiment” designed to be a “wake-up call” to voters about the vulnerabilities of modern polling, Michigan Advance reports.

For its part, Wedgewood Polls said its fake polling was “to test whether media outlets, aggregators, and commentators would report on data without verifying the source, methodology, or underlying firm legitimacy.” It noted that despite having no history or credentials, Wedgewood was added to major polling aggregators, including The New York Times, FiftyPlusOne and VoteHub.

A poll released by Wedgewood Polls on June 24 showed El-Sayed ahead by 46%, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens at 39% and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow with a low 9% potential vote share.

McMorrow, who eventually bowed out of the primary race, addressed the controversy on X, saying that the Wedgewood “experiment” had a real impact on her campaign and its endgame decision to leave the race.