Politics
With 13 days until voting starts, 'election season' kicks off sooner than you think
There are 73 days until Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
But if Americans vote like they did in the last two election cycles, most of them will have already cast a ballot before the big day.
Early voting starts as soon as Sept. 6 for eligible voters, with seven battleground states sending out ballots to at least some voters the same month.
It makes the next few months less a countdown to Election Day, and more the beginning of “election season.”
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Former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. (Getty Images)
States have long allowed at least some Americans to vote early, like members of the military or people with illnesses.
In some states, almost every voter casts a ballot by mail.
Many states expanded eligibility in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic made it riskier to vote in-person.
That year, the Fox News Voter Analysis found that 71% of voters cast their ballots before Election Day, with 30% voting early in-person and 41% voting by mail.
Early voting remained popular in the midterms, with 57% of voters casting a ballot before Election Day.
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A voter fills out a ballot in Lake Orion, Michigan. (Nic Antaya/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Elections officials stress that voting early is safe and secure. Recounts, investigations and lawsuits filed after the 2020 election did not reveal evidence of widespread fraud or corruption.
The difference between “early in-person” and “mail” or “absentee” voting.
There are a few ways to vote before Election Day.
The first is early in-person voting, where a voter casts a regular ballot in-person at a voting center before Election Day.
The second is voting by mail, where the process and eligibility varies by state.
Eight states vote mostly by mail, including California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah. Registered voters receive ballots and send them back.
Most states allow any registered voter to request a mail ballot and send it back. This is also called mail voting, or sometimes absentee voting. Depending on the state, voters can return their ballot by mail, at a drop box, and/or at an office or facility that accepts mail ballots.
In 14 states, voters must have an excuse to vote by mail, ranging from illness, age, work hours or if a voter is out of their home county on Election Day.
States process and tabulate ballots at different times. Some states don’t begin counting ballots until election night, which delays the release of results.
Voting begins on Sept. 6 in North Carolina, with seven more battleground states starting that month
This list of early voting dates is for guidance only. For comprehensive and up-to-date information on voter eligibility, processes and deadlines, go to Vote.gov and your state’s elections website.
The first voters to be sent absentee ballots will be in North Carolina, which begins mailing out ballots for eligible voters on Sept. 6.
Seven more battleground states open up early voting the same month, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada.
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Early voters cast their ballots in Ferndale, Michigan. (Nic Antaya/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
September deadlines
In-person early voting in bold.
Sept. 6
- North Carolina – Absentee ballots sent to voters
Sept. 16
- Pennsylvania – Mail-in ballots sent to voters
Sept. 17
- Georgia – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas
Sept. 19
- Wisconsin – Absentee ballots sent
Sept. 20
- Arkansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Wyoming – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas
- Minnesota, South Dakota – In-person absentee voting begins
- Virginia – In-person early voting begins
- Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia – Absentee ballots sent
Sept. 21
- Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington – Absentee ballots sent to military & overseas
- Indiana, New Mexico – Absentee ballots sent
- Maryland, New Jersey – Mail-in ballots sent
Sept. 23
- Mississippi – In-person absentee voting begins & absentee ballots sent
- Oregon, Vermont – Absentee ballots sent
Sept. 26
- Illinois – In-person early voting begins
- Michigan – Absentee ballots sent
- Florida, Nevada – Mail-in ballots sent
- North Dakota – Absentee & mail-in ballots sent
Sept. 30
- Nebraska – Mail-in ballots sent
October deadlines
Oct. 4
- Connecticut – Absentee ballots sent
Oct. 6
- Michigan – In-person early voting begins
- Maine – In-person absentee voting begins & mail ballots sent
- California – In-person absentee voting begins & mail ballots sent
- Montana – In-person absentee voting begins
- Nebraska – In-person early voting begins
- Georgia – Absentee ballots sent
- Massachusetts – Mail-in ballots sent
Oct. 8
- California – Ballot drop-offs open
- New Mexico, Ohio – In-person absentee voting begins
- Indiana – In-person early voting begins
- Wyoming – In-person absentee voting begins & absentee ballots sent
Oct. 9
- Arizona – In-person early voting begins & mail ballots sent
Oct. 11
- Colorado – Mail-in ballots sent
- Arkansas, Alaska – Absentee ballots sent
Oct. 15
- Georgia – In-person early voting begins
- Utah – Mail-in ballots sent
Oct. 16
- Rhode Island, Kansas, Tennessee – In-person early voting begins
- Iowa – In-person absentee voting begins
- Oregon, Nevada – Mail-in ballots sent
Oct. 17
- North Carolina – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 18
- Washington, Louisiana – In-person early voting begins
- Hawaii – Mail-in ballots sent
Oct. 19
- Nevada, Massachusetts – In-person early voting begins
- Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas – In-person early voting begins
- Colorado – Ballot drop-offs open
Oct. 22
- Hawaii, Utah – In-person early voting begins
- Missouri, Wisconsin – In-person absentee voting begins
Oct. 23
- West Virginia – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 24
- Maryland – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 25
- Delaware – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 26
- Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, New York – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 30
- Oklahoma – In-person early voting begins
Oct. 31
- Kentucky – In-person absentee voting begins
Navy Secretary John Phelan was fired on Wednesday after months of infighting with senior Pentagon leaders and disagreements over how to revive the Navy’s struggling shipbuilding program.
Mr. Phelan is leaving the Pentagon and the Trump administration effective immediately, wrote Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, in a terse statement.
In his role leading the Navy, Mr. Phelan had championed the “Golden Fleet,” a major investment in new ships including a “Trump-class” battleship. But Mr. Phelan’s leadership was marred by feuds with senior leaders in the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, Pentagon and congressional officials said.
Mr. Phelan is the first service secretary to leave the administration, though he is the second one to clash with the defense secretary. Mr. Hegseth also has butted heads with Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll over promotions and a host of other issues. Mr. Hegseth fired the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, earlier this month.
The Navy secretary has no role overseeing deployed forces, and Mr. Phelan’s firing is not likely to have significant implications for the conduct of the Iran war or U.S. Navy operations to blockade Iranian ports or open the Strait of Hormuz. As the Navy’s top civilian leader, his main responsibility is to oversee the building of the future naval and Marine Corps force.
But the tumult could make it harder for the Navy to replenish its stock of Tomahawk missiles and high-end air defense systems, which have been in heavy use in Iran.
Tensions had been simmering for months between Mr. Phelan and his two bosses — Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Feinberg — over management style, personnel issues and other matters.
Mr. Feinberg, in particular, had grown increasingly dissatisfied with Mr. Phelan’s handling of the Navy’s major new shipbuilding initiative, and had been siphoning off responsibility for the project from him, said the congressional official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Mr. Phelan, a White House appointee, also had a contentious relationship with his deputy, Under Secretary Hung Cao, who is more aligned with Mr. Hegseth, especially on some of the social and cultural battles that have defined the defense secretary’s tenure, the officials said.
A senior administration official said that Mr. Hegseth informed Mr. Phelan before the Pentagon’s official announcement that he and President Trump had decided that the Navy needed new leadership.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Phelan referred all questions on Wednesday evening to the Defense Department.
Last fall, Mr. Hegseth fired Mr. Phelan’s chief of staff, Jon Harrison, who had clashed with senior officials throughout the Pentagon. The unusual move highlighted the broader tensions between Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Phelan.
Still, the timing of Mr. Phelan’s firing caught some Pentagon and congressional officials off guard. On Wednesday, Mr. Phelan was making the rounds on Capitol Hill, talking to senators about his upcoming annual hearing with lawmakers to discuss the Navy’s budget request and other priorities.
“Secretary Phelan’s abrupt dismissal is troubling,” Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Wednesday night. “In the midst of President Trump’s war of choice in Iran, at a moment when our naval forces are stretched thin across multiple theaters, this kind of disruption at the top sends the wrong signal to our sailors and Marines, to our allies, and to our adversaries.”
Mr. Phelan also had a close relationship with Mr. Trump. In December, Mr. Phelan appeared alongside Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort to announce the “Golden Fleet” and the new class of battleships bearing Mr. Trump’s name.
“John Phelan is one of the most successful businessmen in the country — in our country,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s been a tremendous success.”
Before joining the Trump administration, Mr. Phelan ran a private investment fund based in Florida.
“He’s taken probably the largest salary cut in history, but he wanted to do it,” Mr. Trump said at the December press conference. “He wants to rebuild our Navy. And you needed that kind of a brain to do it properly.”
But Mr. Trump’s effusive praise masked deeper tensions with Mr. Phelan’s Pentagon bosses.
Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Hudson Institute, said that Mr. Phelan was “driving the Navy in a different direction” than what Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Feinberg wanted.
“He was championing initiatives like the battleship and frigate that don’t align with where the D.O.W. leadership is taking the military, which is toward submarines, stealth aircraft, unmanned systems and software-driven capabilities like electronic warfare and cyber,” Mr. Clark said in an email, using the abbreviation for Department of War, as the administration calls the Defense Department.
Mr. Phelan also clashed with Mr. Hegseth over personnel issues in the Navy and Marine Corps, a former senior military official said. Mr. Hegseth has directed service secretaries to scrub the social media accounts of general- and admiral-level promotion candidates to ensure they are not deemed too “woke” by Mr. Hegseth’s standards, the official said.
Maggie Haberman and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Politics
Manhattan DA’s office employee charged with sexual abuse after alleged incident on Queens subway
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An analyst with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was arrested Tuesday on allegations that he sexually abused a woman while off duty, police told Fox News Digital Wednesday.
Tauhid Dewan, 28, is accused of inappropriately touching a 40-year-old woman’s private area during a late-afternoon rush-hour subway ride in Queens, according to local outlet PIX11.
The victim was reportedly a random woman, the outlet added, citing sources who said she and the suspect were strangers.
A spokeswoman for the office told Fox News Digital that the staffer has since been suspended.
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Tauhid Dewan, 28, was arrested in New York City Tuesday following allegations that the Manhattan DA staffer innapropriately touched a woman during a subway ride (LinkedIn)
According to the New York Police Department, Dewan was arrested around 5 p.m., possibly after returning from work.
PIX11 added that the arrest occurred minutes after the incident, which allegedly took place on a No. 7 train near the Junction Boulevard station.
He was subsequently arrested by the NYPD Transit Bureau and is facing multiple charges, including forcible touching on a bus or train, third-degree sexual abuse, and second-degree harassment involving physical contact.
He was also charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child under the age of 17, suggesting a minor may have been nearby and either witnessed the alleged conduct or was placed at risk by it.
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Tauhid Dewan is an employee of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which is led by DA Alvin Bragg. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Law enforcement sources said Dewan has no prior arrests, local outlets reported.
According to city records, Dewan has worked at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as a senior investigative analyst for nearly four years, since July 10, 2022.
People board a train at a subway station in New York City on Aug. 1, 2025. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
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His arraignment in Queens Criminal Court was scheduled for Wednesday, according to state records.
SAN FRANCISCO — With the California governor’s race quickly approaching, six candidates will face off Wednesday evening in the first debate since former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race in the aftermath of sexual assault and misconduct allegations.
The debate takes place at a critical moment in the turbulent contest to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. Ballots will start landing in Californians’ mailboxes in less than two weeks, and voters are split by a crowded field of eight prominent candidates. The debate also takes place after former state Controller Betty Yee ended her campaign because of a lack of resources and support in the polls.
Two Republicans — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton — and four Democrats — billionaire Tom Steyer, former Biden administration Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan — will take the stage at Nexstar’s KRON4 studios in San Francisco. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, both Democrats, were not invited to participate because of their low polling numbers.
As the candidates strive to distinguish themselves in a crowded field, the debate could include fiery exchanges about the role of money in politics and potential heightened attacks on Becerra, who has surged in the polls since Swalwell dropped out. With the debate taking place on Earth Day, environmental issues are also likely to be raised.
The Wednesday night gathering is the first televised debate in the gubernatorial contest since early February. Last month, USC canceled a debate hours before it was set to begin over mounting criticism that its criteria excluded all major candidates of color.
The 7 p.m. debate is hosted by Nexstar and will be moderated by KTXL FOX40 anchor Nikki Laurenzo and KTLA anchor Frank Buckley. It can be viewed on KRON4 (San Francisco), KTLA5 (Los Angeles), KSWB/KUSI (San Diego), KTXL (Sacramento), KGET (Bakersfield) and KSEE (Fresno). NewsNation will also air the debate.
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