In recent weeks, Dodge City, Kan., became a cause celebre among left-leaning activists after county officials controversially moved the city’s longtime polling station to a new location outside the city limits — more than a mile past the last bus stop.

Nationally, fears quickly spread that election officials were trying to suppress the city’s predominantly Latino population, many of whom work at meatpacking plants. Celebrities including Melissa Etheridge and Debra Messing sprang into action to help organize Lyft rides and buses for any voters who needed transportation. Organizers from across Kansas — and as far away as San Diego — rushed in to help volunteer on the front lines.

But on election day Tuesday, those transportation fears fizzled dramatically as volunteer buses and carpools stayed idle in Dodge City, and activists and residents agreed that the controversy had become overblown.

It took only two minutes — maybe less — for 28-year-old Christian Martinez to drop off his vote-by-mail ballot at American Legion Post 335 in South Gate.

“I dropped it off because I wanted to make sure they got it,” he said.

Wearing a green jacket and black pants, Martinez said he voted mostly for Democratic Party candidates, because they fell in line with his beliefs.  He said President Trump and his Republican Party also played a factor in how he voted today.

Roughly three out of four likely voters in a Dornsife-L.A. Times poll said they saw their vote this fall as an opportunity to express a view of President Trump. Tell us what motivated you.

Staffers with the campaign of Anna Caballero, a Democratic Assemblywoman running for state Senate in Central California, on Tuesday reported that their office in downtown Merced was burglarized overnight.

Bob Sanders, a spokesman with the campaign, said a burglar broke a window to enter the building at 16th and N streets. He said the person or group of people stole computers, cellphones and thousands of door hangers with candidate and polling information.

“It is one those things that makes you believe that it was someone who came in under the auspices of being a volunteer,” Sanders said. “They sized the place up, knew where things were … knew exactly what they were doing.”

As polls opened across the country, residents of several states were contending with severe weather conditions that could affect voter turnout.

A line of storms moved through the Deep South overnight and early Tuesday, knocking down trees and power lines from Louisiana to South Carolina. There were no serious injuries, but an estimated 11,000 residents were left without electricity.

A separate storm front in central Tennessee killed one person, injured two others and left thousands without power.

Laurel Brown has voted in every election since she was 23. She wasn’t originally a fan of Donald Trump, but she said she voted for him in 2016 when she realized that, as a businessman, he acts differently from politicians and “is used to getting things done.”

It’s now the same reason, she says, she cast her ballot this election for Republican John Cox in the race for California governor.

Brown, a 73-year-old retired banker in Modesto, lives in a rural part of California known as the breadbasket of the nation. But she said it’s hard to get elected officials and residents from the state’s largest cities to see the major role her region and its agriculture industry play at home and around the world.

Facebook said it blocked 115 accounts for suspected “coordinated inauthentic behavior” linked to foreign groups attempting to interfere in Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections. 

The social media company shut down 30 Facebook accounts and 85 Instagram accounts and is investigating them in more detail, it said in a blog post late Monday. 

Facebook acted after being tipped off Sunday by U.S. law enforcement officials. Authorities notified the company about recently discovered online activity “they believe may be linked to foreign entities,” Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, wrote in the post. 

Katie Hill, the Democrat who is challenging Republican incumbent Steve Knight in California’s 25th Congressional District,  casts her ballot under the watchful eye of the media at Shepherd of the Hills Church in Agua Dulce. More visual coverage: America goes to the polls

The shouts of children playing soccer in a nearby school yard echoed across the polling station, but Brian Kim kept his focus glued to the ballot guide in his hand.

The 36-year-old Newport Beach resident said he had a friend who was gravely ill and undergoing dialysis, so this election — and Proposition 8 specifically — were very important to him. 

"Politics usually doesn't come up in my circles,” said Kim, who runs a property management business. “Yet when something affects someone you know, it changes the game."

Alan Howarth said he spent the last two weeks "checking out stuff" on one of the world's most dominant social media arenas before making decisions on who or what to vote for Tuesday.

"I went through a lot of YouTuber opinions and a lot of detailed videos," said the Newport Beach music composer and sound designer. "There are some people who view the world as I do and it's important to me to listen to their recent thoughts.”

At 70, the registered independent said he mainly favored Republicans on the ballot, with the governor's race at the top of his list.