Hear that? It’s the crescendo of case-making that comes with less than a week until the highly consequential United States midterm elections for seats in Congress and state capitols. A week from now we should know how an informed electorate sifted facts and claims and exerted its influence at the polls.

The Monitor has plenty in motion to help those still making their decisions, including Noah Robertson’s roundup of ballot initiatives today. Tomorrow and Friday we’ll be deploying, among other offerings, two multimedia pieces with calm, focused perspectives that we think will stand out from the noise.

Tomorrow, multimedia reporter Jingnan Peng delivers a video report on the persistent and uncompromising will to vote by members of one particular community in Decatur, Georgia. Jing was struck by the resilience of disabled people working together to navigate barriers to in-person voting there. 

“I always feel very patriotic when I vote,” one source told him, “more than at any other time.”

On Friday, our “Why We Wrote This” podcast continues. Host Samantha Laine Perfas speaks with our politics editor, Liz Marlantes, about how the Monitor approaches the challenge of staying fair at a time when politics can mean tailoring narratives, by whatever means, to supporters who may be mostly interested in reinforcing their beliefs. 

“One of the expressions that you hear at the Monitor a lot is ‘light, not heat,’” Liz tells Sam. “And I think that can be a particularly beneficial approach in the realm of politics.”