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The Supreme Court has sided with Alabama state officials who banned curbside voting intended to accommodate individuals with disabilities and those at risk from the COVID-19 virus. The high court issued its order Wednesday night, without explanation, over the dissent of the court's three liberal justices. (Totenberg, 10/21)

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan, said the state’s policy discriminated against older and disabled voters. “If those vulnerable voters wish to vote in person,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “they must wait inside, for as long as it takes, in a crowd of fellow voters whom Alabama does not require to wear face coverings,” referring to masks that help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. (Liptak, 10/21)

The independent government watchdog for the United States Postal Service has concluded that a sweeping series of operational changes implemented at the agency by President Donald Trump’s postmaster general “negatively impacted the quality and timeliness of mail delivery” across the country. In a report released this week in response to various congressional requests, the USPS Office of Inspector General analyzed the cost-cutting measures Postmaster General Louis DeJoy put in place after assuming control of the agency in June — as well as the nearly six dozen strategies initiated by USPS operations executives to achieve financial targets. (Forgey, 10/21)

There are a lot of reasons that the country has seen a surge in early voting in 2020. The most obvious is the coronavirus pandemic, which has spurred voters to seek out ways to reduce or eliminate the need to interact with other people when voting. There’s also likely an element of partisanship. President Trump’s false assertions about the risk posed by mail-in voting has pushed a divide between Democrats and Republicans on the process. Polling has consistently shown that Democrats are embracing absentee and early voting, perhaps in part because Trump rejects it. And then there’s the other, subtler reason: A lot of voters appear to want to simply put this whole election behind them, casting ballots now just to be done with the whole thing. (Bump, 10/21)

The stress of presidential elections may increase the incidence of heart attacks and strokes, researchers report. Scientists tracked hospitalizations for acute cardiovascular disease in the weeks before and after the 2016 presidential election among about three million adults who were enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health care system. (Bakalar, 10/20)