November 8: It’s Election Day, go vote

Polls are open in Philly until 8pm and we implore you to make time to vote today. If you need a last-minute assist: Use the NewsWorks voter guide, confirm your polling place, and make sure you know your rights. Tell us about your voting experience using #ShareTheVote on social media.

The Committee of Seventy is conducting a voter survey to better understand “what voters encounter during the voting process and identifying opportunities for improvement.”

If the political path of women is on your mind today, here are two stories of interest:
Rive Cadwallader shares the story Mary Grew, an abolitionist and suffragist, who is buried at the Woodlands. “Mary Grew died in 1896, a full twenty-four years before women received the right to vote in the United States. Still, she worked to bring about some of the most remarkable social and political progress the country has seen, and the story of her long career deepens the meaning of enfranchisement in 2016. Today, as in Mary Grew’s time, egalitarianism is not a political certainty, a fact which makes the exercise of the of the voting rights she fought for all the more important.”

Gender has been central to conversations during this election season, so why does the historical significance of possibly electing America’s first female president seem so buried? WHYY’s Susan Phillips talks to different generations of women voters about the election, including one born 96 years ago when her mother didn’t yet have the vote. She also spoke to Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, about the impulse for women to vote for Clinton because it’s an historic moment. Lawless predicts that if more women vote for Clinton it will only be less about mobilizing women to vote for her and more “because Trump is repelling them.”

Why are all eyes on Pennsylvania? The Atlantic describes our special combination of swing-stateness, 20 Electoral College votes, and no early voting, and in the case of this election – a very close U.S. Senate race between Katie McGinty and Pat Toomey.

Maybe you need a distraction from election anxiety today? 270 to Win isn’t going to curb that. Instead try dreaming your own subway system with the game Mini Metro.