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Millions of voters — about one in five — are expected to vote absentee, or by mail, in November's midterm elections. For many voters, it's more convenient than going to the polls.

But tens of thousands of these mail-in ballots will likely be rejected — and the voter might never know, or know why.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission found that in 2012 more than a quarter of a million absentee ballots were rejected.

The number one reason? The ballot wasn't returned on time, which in most states is by Election Day. Sometimes it's the voters fault. Others blame the Post Office.

Kim Alexander, who runs the California Voter Foundation, says this past June almost 600 absentee ballots arrived at the Santa Cruz County election office the morning after the primary. Too late to count.

"And it's absolutely heartbreaking. Because the only thing worse than people not voting, is people trying to vote and having their ballots go uncounted," says Alexander. "And most of these people have no idea that their ballots are not getting counted. They could be making the same mistakes over and over again."

And those mistakes are often easy to avoid. Here are some:

The voter forgets to sign the ballot, as required.

The voter sends the envelope back, but forgets to include the ballot.

The voter uses the wrong envelope.

The voter already voted in person.

The voter's signature on the ballot doesn't match the one on file.

This last mistake is a big problem, says Alexander. In California, all absentee ballot signatures are checked against the ones the election office has in its records. But many of those signatures come from the Department of Motor Vehicles, where people sign their names using a stylus on a pad, which can look a lot different than a signature written on paper.

"You also have the issue of younger people whose signatures change over time. You have older voters whose signature changes over time too," says Alexander. "And voters have no idea what image of their signature is on file."

She says it could be 10 or 15 years old. In 2012, thousands of California ballots were rejected because the signatures didn't match.

Absentee voters who are confused and vote twice is another concern.

Alysoun McLaughlin is deputy director of the Montgomery County, Md., board of elections. She calls these "just in case" voters. First, they send in their absentee ballot.

"They're concerned that maybe it won't get back to us in time. So then they also go to the polls and they vote," says McLaughlin.

That vote is a provisional one, but when election officials get that second ballot in the mail, both ballots are rejected. It's illegal to vote twice — even by mistake.

Paul Gronke, who runs the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Oregon, says he's concerned about all these lost votes.

"After the 2000 election, a lot of attention was paid in this country to voting machines to make sure that no one was denied the right to vote because of a machine that didn't function properly, or a chad that did not hang properly," Gronke says.

But absentee voting hasn't received that same attention, he says. And in a close election, those ballots could make a difference.

Gronke says it's also important to know which voters are affected the most. A study by the California Civic Engagement Project at UC Davis found that absentee ballots cast by young voters or those using non-English ballots were more likely to be rejected.

And Gronke says a study he did in Florida found lots of absentee ballots got tossed in precincts made up entirely of senior citizens.

"As many as a third of the ballots in some cases were rejected because of errors," he says.

Gronke doesn't know what those errors were, but thinks the findings do raise questions about whether instructions on how to vote absentee are clear enough.

Election officials are doing more to try to educate voters about the rules. Their big message is to get the absentee ballot in the mail as soon as possible.

Better yet, says Kim Alexander, they should notify voters when their ballots have been rejected and tell them why — so they don't make the same mistake twice.

Everyone hates the sheer agony of an umbrella flipping inside out in a windy rainstorm. Even with the best umbrellas, this happens all too often.

Justin Nagelberg feels your pain. His new umbrella, the Sa, totally shakes up the umbrella's tired design. To put the project in motion, Nagelberg teamed up with Matthew Waldman, founder of the New York design lab Nooka, who he met at a design conference in Tokyo a few years ago. Pledges to help fund the project have reached nearly $60,000 on Kickstarter, almost twice the original goal.

"I kind of felt like the normal umbrella structure was so complicated and so ugly," Nagelberg says. "I wanted to update that for the modern era."

It's just like "sewing machines or devices that were built like a hundred years ago and we haven't really modernized them yet," he adds.

The Sa completely shakes up the umbrella's centuries-old design. Based on origami, the Sa has inner and outer canopies that expand and retract in unison. The inner canopy replaces the inner metal skeleton, making the umbrella lighter and allowing for more headroom.

The umbrella is made out of waterproof plastic and is flexible enough that it will bounce back in high winds.

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The Sa's inner and outer canopies expand and retract in unison. Courtesy of Justin Nagelberg hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Justin Nagelberg

The Sa's inner and outer canopies expand and retract in unison.

Courtesy of Justin Nagelberg

"It's really durable because of the truncated hexagon shape," Nagelberg says. "It works somewhat like a pyramid. The planes also stop the structure from expanding beyond its fully open size. This is exceptionally strong when wind comes from underneath the umbrella, making it really hard, if not impossible, to blow inside out."

Six guide panels along the outer edges of the canopy protect the umbrella in strong storms.

"Also, the controlling arms, those six long narrow rectangular planes, can be reinforced to really ensure a strong structure," he says.

For anyone who has ever struggled getting an umbrella opened and closed, the Sa is also one of the first umbrellas to use an internalized mechanism instead of having locking points along the stem. The umbrella is opened by twisting the bottom of the handle and closed by pulling the handle outward. Magnets embedded along the panels close it tight.

Nagelberg says the Sa should last a long time because it is made out of recyclable plastic and has no exposed metal that could rust.

Because of the origami inspiration, the name "Sa" comes from three Japanese words: "kasa," which means umbrella, "same," which is a word for rain, and "sasu," which is the verb used to describe holding an umbrella.

Parallels

No Rain On His Parade: Parisian Preserves Art Of Umbrella Repair

Nagelberg began designing the Sa a few years ago because he was frustrated with the problems of traditional umbrellas. Once he had the idea, it took him four months to develop the prototype.

"I had the idea a long time ago to make an umbrella that would rotate when you open and close it," Nagelberg says. "I wanted shapes that would use panels in a way that would create motion."

The Sa will be launched in March 2015 and will cost $69, Nagelberg says. If they reach $100,000 on Kickstarter, he would like to start work on a simpler, compact version that would cost around $20.

"It would be ideal for unexpected rainstorms or just people who want to enjoy the design but can't afford the price of the standard version," he says.

In our "Weekly Innovation" blog series, we explore an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Do you have an innovation to share? Use this quick form.

Samantha Raphelson is a digital news intern at NPR.org. You can reach out to her on Twitter, where she is often tweeting obsessively about the Foo Fighters and the Phillies.

umbrella

There's a woman running in the tight race for the Senate in Iowa — one of the contests that will decide who controls the Senate next year. In the 21st century, a female candidate for Senate may not sound historic. But in Iowa, it is.

The state shares a rare distinction with Mississippi: It has never elected a woman to the Senate, to the House, or to be governor.

Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst is trying to change that in her race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley — a race in which the role of female voters is central.

The gender gap has been around for decades. Republicans typically do well with men, Democrats with women.

And among women who vote, those who are not married are still more likely to vote for Democrats. Young singles, divorcees and widows are all prime Democratic constituencies.

Democrats say they appeal to women on both economic and social grounds. Women, they say, would benefit more from a higher minimum wage and other pocketbook issues. And, they say, women are concerned about reproductive rights.

Democrats accuse Republicans of waging a war on women.

Professor Rachel Paine Caufield, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines, says Republicans have been responding to that charge and gaining ground.

"They've identified this problem. And they know that need to appeal to women. ... Part of that is fielding more women candidates. Part of that is reframing some of their messages to women voters," she says.

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Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley speaks to fairgoers at the Iowa State Fair. While polls show Braley with a sizable lead among women, he trails among men by an even wider margin. Charlie Neibergall/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Charlie Neibergall/AP

Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley speaks to fairgoers at the Iowa State Fair. While polls show Braley with a sizable lead among women, he trails among men by an even wider margin.

Charlie Neibergall/AP

In Iowa, polls show Braley running as many as 14 points ahead of Ernst among women.

But he's trailing Ernst by even more than that margin among men.

So the Democrats need women to turn out and vote.

The week before last, Braley got a visit from a very high profile Democratic woman: Michelle Obama.

For a candidate who is said to have a tough time introducing himself to Iowa voters, it didn't help that the first lady several times got his name wrong.

"You can request a ballot by mail, right here, at this event or you can go to vote dot Bruce Bailey dot com. That's vote dot Bruce Bailey dot com. Or even better, you can ..." she started, eliciting shouts from the audience. "Braley? What did I say? I'm losing it. I'm getting old."

Ernst, who's an officer in the Iowa Army National Guard, presents herself as a mother, soldier, leader. She has made a strong introduction with the voters, largely through her commercials.

In an ad titled "Squeal" she narrates: "My parents taught us to live within our means. It's time to force Washington to do the same." She also invokes the common experience she shared with other Iowa farm kids, castrating hogs. She'll come to Washington and cut pork. "Let's make 'em squeal," the ad ends.

Then came a commercial showing Ernst riding a motorcycle to a shooting range and firing a pistol she carries in her purse.

"Joni Ernst will take aim at wasteful spending, and once she sets her sights on Obamacare, Joni's gonna unload," the narrator says.

Drake's Caufield says those images are relaying a central message: "I'm from a man's world."

"This is something, particularly in a time in foreign policy, women candidates tend to have a harder time appealing to voters on foreign policy issues," says Caufield. "I don't think Joni Ernst has had any problem on that. I don't think there's any question that she has presented herself to voters as someone who is tough, and capable, and willing to fight every bit as hard as any male would be."

How is it playing with women?

Last week, we invited six Iowa women, from across the political spectrum, to watch the third and final Braley-Ernst televised debate with us.

In that debate, there was much talk about the Personhood Amendment to the Iowa Constitution that Ernst sponsored as a state senator. Would declaring a fertilized egg to be a person ban all abortions, some contraceptives and in vitro fertilization?

Braley cited the concerns of OB-GYNs that it would do all those things.

Ernst said she's pro-life. She could support abortion to save the life of a mother. She said she supports access to contraception and she has no objection to in vitro, which entails disposing of excess fertilized eggs.

In the debate, Ernst also spoke of going to Washington to fix a dysfunctional government.

Braley said that all of her solutions scrap things: the Department of Education, federal student loans, the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal minimum wage.

When each was asked to say something admirable about the other, Braley said this about Ernst, who was deployed in the Iraq War:

"Well, I admire the fact that Sen. Ernst has served our nation and our state and the Iowa National Guard. I think it's a terrific attribute. My father was a Word War II combat veteran, and I have great respect for Sen. Ernst for serving our country."

Ernst's answer:

"And I think Congressman Braley is a great father."

The reaction from our group: "Oh, God." Most found that line to be condescending.

It turned out that our six viewers all thought Braley did better.

Loretta Sieman — a former Des Moines councilwoman and registered Republican — sounded disappointed that she couldn't be enthusiastic about the female candidate. Ernst struck her as too negative.

"At the end, he just talked about what he was going to do. She talked about what he didn't do. And that drives me crazy," she said. "As a woman, we know that we have never had a woman from Iowa so we're supposed to be involved for that. As a past councilperson, I want the right person and I don't care if they wear a skirt or pants."

Brittany Gaura, a sophomore at Iowa State, is a Young Republican; she hopes to be a veterinarian. I asked about the importance of electing a woman to the Senate: "To me, it's important to have a woman, I think, in the Senate, and from Iowa. I think a lot of women in Iowa have a lot to bring to the table — but it's not important to me right now if she's not the right woman."

Her fellow conservative in the group, businesswoman Karen Novak, agreed. "I'm looking at who's the most qualified individual. I don't care if they wear pants or a skirt, it makes no difference. I would absolutely love to get a woman in office, but only if she's the right one and she has the right qualifications," she said.

Those two Iowa women had described themselves as leaning toward Ernst before the debate. Afterward, they were leaning a little less in that direction.

The same was true for Angela Ten Clay, who works at an ad agency. "Braley was very articulate and answered things really well and gave more meat and depth to his conversation. And whether I agreed with it or not, when someone is concise and clear and strong in what they believe that's really what I look for. That they stand up for something, and they back it and they don't change their opinion," she says.

I asked our group of Iowa women what they made of the references in the debate to motherhood. Ernst describes herself as a mother first.

We had two decided Braley voters in the group. Pat Schneider said Ernst's description of herself didn't impress her. "When she talks about she's a mother, she's a soldier ... it's like, OK, but that could be anybody. I mean that to me doesn't qualify you to run for Congress. Although I do think if we had more women in Congress, I think we could probably get a lot more done because women are used to compromising, and working together. I mean, we have to do it every day with our kids, our workforce," she said. "In that respect, it would be great, but I don't think Joni Ernst is the right woman."

Nicole Peckumn, who also supports Braley, is not a mother. And as she said, female voters are a more mixed lot than just moms.

"To me, it's really about the quality of the candidate, and not necessarily about gender. Do I want to still be tied with Mississippi for not having a woman go to D.C.? Absolutely no and I think that this will be the year that either in the congressional or Senate race we'll do it," Peckumn said.

"Being a mother is wonderful, but there are a lot of people in our society who have opted to not have that be a part of their plan. So I think when you're talking about the big scope of America, you have to also look at people who are not like you. Someday I want to be a mom. ... But it doesn't really generate a big emotional connection with me or some of my friends who are moms."

Here's something that all six women agreed on. And both Senate candidates in the debate said they agreed on. And both state party chairmen whom I interviewed last week in Des Moines said they agreed on: Everyone hates the nonstop, bumper-to-bumper airing of campaign commercials, typically bashing one candidate or the other. Commercials from campaigns, national party committees, outside groups. The revulsion is as universal as it is, apparently, ineffectual.

As in many states, early voting is well underway Iowa, so every day is Election Day.

And as soon as last week's televised debate ended, the commercials resumed.

Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee, who led The Washington Post to national eminence through charm, drive, instinct and, most notably, an epic confrontation with the Nixon White House, died Tuesday. He was 93.

Through his tenure at the Post, the legendary newspaper editor helped to define the standards and aspirations of American journalism for more than a generation. He oversaw an expansion of the kinds of coverage his newspaper offered readers that influenced editors at papers across the country. Internally, Bradlee was best known as a champion of ambitious reporters and stylish writers, goading them to new heights.

Bradlee's most consequential test would arrive amid the scandal that first vexed and later brought down President Nixon, starting with the report of a break-in at the national headquarters of the Democratic Party at the Watergate complex in 1972.

"If you were told — any editor of The Washington Post since the beginning of time — there was going to be a story that 40 people would go to jail and the president of the United States would resign, he'd say, 'Thank you, Lord,' " Bradlee told an interviewer from C-SPAN several years ago. He was rewarded for standing by two unknown local reporters who doggedly pursued the story against the critical conventional wisdom of the rest of the political press.

"Reporters need to know they have to keep banging away at it. They have to give their own energies and curiosities and aggressiveness full rein," says former Washington Post reporter David Remnick, now editor of The New Yorker magazine.

Remnick recalled being summoned to Bradlee's office after the late Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan had complained the young reporter was looking into anecdotes about his heavy drinking. As Bradlee leaned back in his chair, Remnick tried to reassure Bradlee not to worry. The editor cut him short and ended the meeting this way: "Worry? Me worry? I don't f- - -ing worry!"

A salty phrase; a hearty laugh; an unyielding journalistic backbone — Ben Bradlee was well known for all three. He played the role of fearless newsroom captain almost without flaw.

"They have to have somebody behind them telling them it's OK, because there are all these people out there saying it's not; all these governments and PR people saying it's not," Remnick says. "You need somebody behind you saying, 'Keep at it,' and that was Bradlee's message in a thousand different ways."

Becoming A Newsman

Born to a family of Boston Brahmins, Bradlee served in naval intelligence during World War II and saw major conflict in the Pacific arena. After the war, he launched a small paper in New Hampshire and decided to head south to seek a job at a bigger publication. Bradlee landed a job in Washington, D.C., with the Post only because he refused to get off the train in Baltimore during a downpour.

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To tell the truth, Bradlee enjoyed only mild success as a reporter. He next departed for Paris, where he became a diplomatic aide with ties to figures in the CIA. But in 1953, he joined Newsweek and thrived. He became close to a Georgetown neighbor — a young senator named John F. Kennedy — and would later find himself accused by Richard Nixon's defenders of being too cozy with the Democratic establishment.

There was another, even more fateful connection, however. In the early 1960s, Bradlee had persuaded the publisher of The Washington Post, Phil Graham, to buy Newsweek, where Bradlee was Washington bureau chief. A few years later, after Graham's suicide, the company's new president — his widow, Katharine Graham — summoned Bradlee to a private club to which she belonged.

"I said, 'What is it you do want to do? I noticed you've turned these jobs down in New York,' " Graham later told Terry Gross on WHYY's Fresh Air.

"And of course, Ben being Ben, said, 'Well, now that you ask me, I'd give my left one to be managing editor of The Post.' I know that's a little bit vulgar, but Ben talks like that," Graham said. "And I was brought up short, because I didn't expect that."

Soon enough, Bradlee joined the Post as managing editor, with the promise, quickly fulfilled, of leading the previously undistinguished paper as its executive editor.

Remaking The 'Post'

Bradlee went on a hiring spree — and a firing spree too — embracing the so-called new journalism giving feature writers leeway to develop a personalized voice once they had made a mark. Leonard Downie Jr. was a young investigative reporter and editor at the Post in the 1960s and 1970s. He wanted to prove himself to Bradlee as desperately as anyone.

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Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post, and Bradlee leave U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on June 21, 1971. The newspaper got the go-ahead to print the Pentagon Papers. AP hide caption

itoggle caption AP

Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post, and Bradlee leave U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on June 21, 1971. The newspaper got the go-ahead to print the Pentagon Papers.

AP

"He was one of the most charismatic people I've ever met," Downie says. "He had an incredibly strong presence in the newsroom. He had incredible sex appeal — sex appeal that I dare say was felt as much by men as well as women — and he used it."

In her memoir, Graham wrote that Bradlee had an effective form of flirtation with her as well, that yielded results on paper, in the newsroom and on the bottom line. In partnership with his patron, Bradlee was, in essence, re-creating the Post from scratch to become a worthy rival of the nation's most important news organizations — right up there with The New York Times, Time magazine and CBS.

When the Nixon administration persuaded a judge to stop the Times from publishing new installments of the Pentagon Papers, Bradlee and Graham decided to publish them right away. The decision exposed her company to significant financial risk.

The ensuing Supreme Court ruling in the two papers' favor enshrined protections for the press against so-called prior restraint.

Watergate

Not long after the Pentagon Papers decision, two unknown Metro reporters for the Post started to unravel a criminal conspiracy involving the 1972 elections and a cover-up that led back to the White House itself.

Bradlee wasn't a details guy except on the stories he cared most about. This one qualified. He personally helped to oversee the coverage of a story that soon took on the cinematic elements of a thriller.

Interest from other news organizations, and even from the Post's own political reporters, ebbed soon after that initial break-in at the Watergate complex.

"It's hard for people now to remember or if they weren't yet born even then to know — even if you see the movie or read the book — what a high-wire act that was," says Downie, later Bradlee's successor as the executive editor of the Post. "Most of the other journalists in the country [thought] Watergate was a crazy story that would blow up in our face. We had no competition for weeks and months on end during that story. I was one of the line editors during the Watergate coverage, and it was scary."

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Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of The Washington Post (left) and journalist Bob Woodward talk in 2011 during the program "Remembering Watergate: A Conversation" at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif. Chris Carlson/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Chris Carlson/AP

Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of The Washington Post (left) and journalist Bob Woodward talk in 2011 during the program "Remembering Watergate: A Conversation" at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif.

Chris Carlson/AP

The Post's parent company had local television station licenses up for review by federal regulators appointed by Nixon; Graham was warned by Washington intimates that she could lose the paper too. But despite threats from former Attorney General John Mitchell, among others, Bradlee persuaded Graham to hold firm.

Bradlee catapulted to celebrity along with his so-very-green reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, thanks to the Watergate story and the ensuing book and movie, All The President's Men. Jason Robards won an Academy Award for playing an editor whose reporters helped expose the criminality of a White House, the ultimate (and basically true) conspiracy story.

"You guys are about to write a story that says the former attorney general — the highest-ranking law enforcement official in this country — is a crook," Robards, as Bradlee, warned his young reporters, pausing for effect before delivering this warning: "Just be sure you're right."

For all that mystique, Bradlee could be a notably incurious editor. He didn't know the identity of Bob Woodward's top secret source, "Deep Throat," until two years after President Nixon resigned. Bradlee spoke to NPR's Michele Norris in 2005 after the source was revealed to be a top FBI official, Mark Felt, who had wanted to be the director of the FBI.

"I knew that he was high-ranking, but I didn't know how high-ranking. And as a matter of fact, it wasn't very important what job he held, so long as he did one thing, and that was tell the truth," Bradlee said. "And before long it was obvious that this man knew what he was talking about, because from Day 1 he never gave us a bad steer."

Legacy Of A Leader

Bradlee's strengths were often also closely linked to his weaknesses. The star system that orbited around him led to tensions within the newsroom. A celebration for a Pulitzer Prize for one of those young stars — an expose by Janet Cooke about an 8-year-old heroin addict — turned to ash in just hours. The story proved to be largely fabricated, as Cooke couldn't even introduce skeptical editors to the boy.

Woodward had been the top editor for Metro news and the scandal knocked him from the path to succeed Bradlee, though he became a best-selling investigative author. But Bradlee survived largely unscathed, in large part because so much of his DNA marked the paper as his own.

Major regional newspapers mimicked the format he devised for the Post, with a Style section devoted to features involving politics, regional personalities, celebrity and popular culture and highbrow culture alike. He also insisted on a high profile for beats on the subjects he vigorously and vulgarly called "SMERSH — science, medicine, education, religion and all that s- - -" — the subjects from which Bradlee personally took little enjoyment.

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President Obama awards Bradlee the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Nov. 20, 2013. Win McNamee/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Win McNamee/Getty Images

President Obama awards Bradlee the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Nov. 20, 2013.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

As Bradlee's tenure drew to a close, Remnick says, it was almost touching to witness the degree to which several senior editors competing to replace him adopted some of his sartorial traits, such as the reading glasses on a string, the slicked-back hair and the striped shirts. After decades of Bradlee's leadership, no one could imagine an editor with a different look.

Downie — a less flamboyant, more careful newsroom leader with a dedication to investigative reporting — succeeded Bradlee in 1991. But the paper continued to carry Bradlee's trademark swagger.

After his retirement, Bradlee served as a vice president at large for the parent Washington Post Co., a charismatic talisman for the glories of the paper's journalism even as it hit rocky economic times. Graham's son and granddaughter would later sell the paper to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos after failing to hit on a strategy that would revive its financial fortunes; staffers say it gave the newsroom a jolt of confidence it had not seen in years — perhaps since the Bradlee era.

Bradlee wasn't introspective, but in an interview with his friend Jim Lehrer of PBS late in life, he sought to pin down what animated him.

"It changes your life, the pursuit of truth," Bradlee said. "At least, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth, it's very, it's very exciting, I find."

Among Bradlee's survivors are his wife, the longtime Washington Post feature writer Sally Quinn; their son, Quinn; and his son by an earlier marriage, the journalist Ben Bradlee Jr.

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