Good morning.
It's Monday, October 21st.
I'm Sumeetha Basu.
This is Apple News Today.
On today's show, the crime that has spiked in the D.C.
area.
An American citizen speaks out about spending years in a Russian prison and the surprising class of new millionaires.
But first, Election Day is just two weeks away.
But thanks to early voting, people have begun casting ballots in a majority of states.
As of this weekend, more than 14 million people have voted, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab, which keeps a tally on this.
Turnout is so high that early voting records have been broken in critical battleground states, including in Georgia and North Carolina.
At the same time, there have already been dozens of lawsuits filed contesting voting protocols.
Joining me to talk about what all of this means is my colleague, Gideon Resnick.
Hey, Gideon.
Hey, Shmita.
So let's talk about these huge early voting numbers that we are seeing.
What do the numbers tell us so far about who is winning or who is losing this election?
Well, not to be a wet blanket about it, but the short answer is it doesn't tell us much, honestly.
So you might see all over your social media people making claims about, you know, oh, this many people voted in a particular Democratic stronghold, and that must mean that Democrats will win the state or this many Republicans voted in this stronghold, and that means Republicans are gonna win the state.
But, you know, say, for example, we look at one of these states, I don't know, Georgia, and we look at Fulton county, and we say that a Democrat voted there.