Candidates still are making the trek to Iowa and New Hampshire to make their presidential intentions known. But early voting and a supercharged calendar with California and Texas near the front will change the presidential primaries in 2020.

On this bubblicious morning in Georgia, as we wait for the polls to open again, we might want to brush up on the famous “three governors controversy,“ which the New Georgia Encyclopedia has described as “one of the more bizarre political spectacles in the annals of American politics.” We could be on the verge of something similar.

Candidates used to vote on Election Day in front of television camera crews. This year, both Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp voted early and posted about it on social media. For some first time voters, voting early may be the only way of voting they’ll ever know.

Shortly after 9/11, the expression “new normal” came into vogue. It was supposed to describe the new regimen of measures everybody was going to have to get used to as the nation adjusted to the terrorist threat. But it has become a reminder of how unevenly the impact of that day’s attack has been distributed.

Democrats and civil rights groups headed off the closure of polling places in Randolph County last week, but that was only a small part of a much bigger battle over ballot access.

Last week Secretary of State Brian Kemp refused to step down to avoid any conflict of interest in the upcoming election, and a federal court mulled a suit demanding the state go back to paper ballots, now. It’s a far cry from 16 years ago, when we were talking about a future in which voting would be as easy as going to the mall.