Final voting began without any major hitches Tuesday morning in a midterm election where voting itself has been in the spotlight after two years of false claims and conspiracy theories about how ballots are cast and counted.

Since the last nationwide election in 2020, former US president Donald Trump and his allies have succeeded in sowing wide distrust about voting by promoting false claims of widespread fraud. The effort has eroded public confidence in elections and democracy, led to restrictions on mail voting and new ID requirements in some Republican-led states and prompted death threats against election officials.