Voters across the United States headed to polling places on Election Day 2026 to cast ballots in the midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake amid deep political divisions. Photographers from NPR stations recorded scenes from communities around the country, from people voting and waiting in line to local election-day activities.
Images showed voters filling out ballots at Chicago’s McKinley Park Library and using electronic voting stations at Hastings city hall in Minnesota. In Fairfax County, Virginia, an election official put up signs directing voters to the polling room, while voters waited at locations in Austin, Texas, and dropped off ballots at a voting center in San Francisco.
Other scenes included a large “VOTE” sign outside Hartford City Hall and a voter collecting an “I Voted” sticker at Manchester High School in Connecticut. In Des Moines, Iowa, Diane Mitchell handed out sandwiches and cookies from a food truck.
In Minneapolis, Peg Ihinger photographed herself leaving her early-voting sticker at a memorial for Alex Pretti. She said she hoped “this nightmare” would end for the city and the country. The report said Pretti and Renée Good, both 37 and Minneapolis residents, were killed in separate incidents involving federal immigration officers in January during the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge.
The photographs also documented election activity in St. Louis, Boston and Washington, D.C., including a sidewalk marking in the capital’s Columbia Heights neighborhood that read “NATL GUARD 50 FT BACK.”
Sources: NPR News.