How Elon Musk’s Twitter buy could affect elections

Good morning! It's Friday, October 28th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.

Elon Musk now owns Twitter. He reportedly fired the CEO and several top executives after completing his $44 billion acquisition. Overnight, he tweeted, "the bird is freed." "Washington Post" tech writer Will Oremus has been paying close attention to what Musk has said in the lead up to closing this deal. He's talked about laying off workers and rolling back Twitter's content moderation efforts. And he's indicated he might allow election deniers back on the platform, including former President Trump.

Musk seems to genuinely believe that a more permissive attitude toward political speech, even if it's demonstrably false, even if it's maybe considered hateful or bigoted, that's the best thing for democracy, that we need to safeguard free speech above all. And with the midterms just days away, Oremus says Musk's Twitter takeover has high stakes for U.S. politics.

It's a place where news is reported and interpreted in real time, where the people who shape how the news will be communicated to the public argue about it and debate over what the facts are and how to interpret them in real time. So Twitter is enormously influential, especially when it comes to politics. And it matters who owns Twitter because they get to have the final say over what is and is not in bounds, in terms of discourse on the platform.

Early voting is well underway in most states, and some states are already smashing early voting records set in the 2018 midterms.

My colleague, Gideon Resnick, is here now to talk about how it's going so far. So Gideon, what's standing out to you?

Yeah, among all these places, Georgia is really one that has been really interesting in the early going. By all accounts so far, turnout has just been massive. They started early voting on October 17th. I mean, here are some eye-popping numbers from the Secretary of State's office, which has been updating pretty regularly. As of this last Tuesday, more than a million people in Georgia have voted early already.

Oh, wow.

It's quite impressive. And it's notable because this turnout is happening after Republican Governor Brian Kemp passed a law that restricted certain voting options like drop box locations. And also, it banned handing out food and drinks to those waiting in line, among other things. And so far, it appears that a majority of these votes are early and in person.

Mm. And does this match what we're seeing happening in other states? Are early voting numbers just up across the board?

It's hard to say for sure. We don't have all of the information just yet. But a few other examples: "The New York Times" reported that, as of this past weekend, the early vote total in Florida was up 50% compared with the number at this time in 2018. Another example that is sort of a counter to that: Texas is one place where the numbers, so far, have not been quite as high as the last midterms.

Mm. So what does this all mean for overall turnout?

It's kind of hard to fully read into anything just yet and I think we probably shouldn't. But based on these early vote numbers and some polling that we are seeing, it really does seem like people are very, very interested in this election. A recent "NBC News" poll found that 70% of all registered voters had a high interest in the election, either a nine or ten on a ten-point scale. So really maxing out there. And in a midterm year, that is pretty unreal.

Gideon, thanks for joining!

Yeah, thank you! We've got much more coverage of the midterms, along with details on how to vote where you live. That's all in the Apple News app.

The World Series starts tonight between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston Astros. It's a clash of two teams that, let's just say, have had different levels of success.

You have maybe one of the most lopsided matchups we've had in a number of years. Mike Petriello is the lead stats analyst for MLB.com.

On one side, you've got the Astros who have been to the American League Championship Series six years in a row. And on the other side, you've got the Phillies who still haven't won 90 games in more than a decade. Another way that it's lopsided? Petriello says baseball fans hate one team way more.

just playing a dead guy on a TV show. Maybe you find that little weird, but you cannot deny the dedication that one man from Kentucky put into achieving it.

Vegas." You can look out for his episode next week. He's the dead guy on the gurney. And if you've got a slightly dark sense of humor like me, you'll probably enjoy scrolling through his TikTok and the many, many ways he convincingly played dead to score this role. You can find that linked in the story on the Apple News app, along with all the stories that we talked about today.

I would really like the top leaders of news organizations to reframe their thinking. Something like this. I mean, it sounds so basic, it's almost laughable. "How can we best serve democracy and serve the American public?" Not "How can we get the most traction on this story?"

Enjoy that weekend listen. I'll be back with the news on Monday.