US poll worker Alany Gonzalez sets up another voting booth in front of dryers at the Su Nueva Lavanderia near Chicago's Midway Airport, November 8, 2022, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Members of the Orthodox Jewish community stand in line to register to vote at a US polling center, November 8, 2022, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
Election workers process mail-in-ballots for the US midterm elections in Philadelphia, November 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Supervisor Lou-Ann LaPorte looks on as a voter leaves the Aspray Boat House polling site after casting a ballot in the US midterm election in Warwick, Rhode Island, November 8, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Jacob Lewis, 3, waits at a privacy booth as his grandfather, Robert Schroyer, fills out his ballot while voting at Sabillasville Elementary School, November 8, 2022, in Sabillasville, Maryland. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
A poll worker wears a "vote" mask as they check in voters on US Election Day, November 8, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Americans were voting Tuesday in a key election that will decide whether Republicans end the Democratic Party’s hold on Washington and take back the US House and Senate.
The balloting marks the first major national elections since the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the US Supreme Court’s decision in June to end constitutional protection of abortion rights.
All 435 seats in the narrowly Democrat-held House and one-third of the evenly divided Senate are being decided.
Emotions were raw as people stood outside libraries, fitness centers, laundromats and fire stations to begin casting ballots. From Lewiston, Maine, to rainy Pacoima, California, they held infants in their arms and wore uniforms, suits and workout clothes as they waited to vote.
Many said inflation, abortion, crime and the future of democracy weighed heavily on their minds.
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Associated Press photographers fanned out across the US to capture voting on election day.
A person votes on US Election Day, November 8, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)A US voter waits in line as Ohio voters cast their ballots in a fitness studio at the Everybody Fitness Center in Dayton, Ohio, November 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)People stand in line to vote in the US midterm election at the John F. Kennedy Library, November 8, 2022, in Hialeah, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)A marquee in downtown Atlanta displays the word “vote” on US Election Day, November 8, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)A US voter walks to fill out his ballot at the Elenor Boathouse polling place on the Southside of Chicago, November 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)A US voter moves to cast her ballot at an electronic counting machine at a polling site in the Brooklyn Museum, November 8, 2022, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)Clive Miller casts his ballot at a firehouse polling station in the US midterm election, November 8, 2022, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)A US voter moves to cast her ballot at an electronic counting machine at a polling site in the Brooklyn Museum, November 8, 2022, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)From left, members of Mariachi America Javier Medina, DeJesus Diaz, Miguel Valaquez and Cesar Abraham perform outside the City County Building for Us voters to open the polling places November 8, 2022, in downtown Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)Voters line up to cast their ballots in the US midterm election at the Aspray Boat House in Warwick, Rhode Island, November 8, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
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