Hi there! Happy Election Day Eve. I voted early, and I’ll be spending some time tomorrow morning passing out coffee at the polls with my neighborhood association. Later, I’ll be watching returns at the bar around the corner, which is facilitating “ranked choice voting” to determine their best beer tap. 

This is shaping up to be the most expensive midterms ever. We’ll look at the top 20 donors trying to steer both the democracy and the economy with their billions later in this newsletter, but we’ll start off with some other neighborhood businesses and their plans for tomorrow. — Tony Wagner, newsletter editor

The midterm elections are almost upon us, and some business leaders are speaking out, urging candidates and public officials to respect the voting process and abide by election results. Among their motivations: the Trump administration’s preemptive challenge of the result in Alaska’s Senate race and its demand that California set aside 20,000 ballots.

The business leaders’ argument is that free and fair elections are essential for a functional economy.

Back in 2020, supporters of President Donald Trump in Arizona made several attempts to reverse Joe Biden’s victory there. Courts dismissed those challenges, but John Fees, head of a Phoenix-based insurance company called GradGuard, said that during all that, the business community was more or less silent.

“We didn't speak up in a unified voice about the integrity of the elections, and what ends up happening, right, is lies travel faster than the truth,” Fees said.

So, he joined with other business leaders to defend election officials and the process. This year, he and his allies sent out a questionnaire to candidates in six statewide races in Arizona.

“Will you accept the election results at the conclusion of all legitimate appeals? In other words, if you lose, will you accept the results?” Fees said. Some, but not all, candidates have signed on.

Hassan’s fellow Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee are calling on the federal government and private companies to do more to combat scams. (She’s right about the industrialization of scams; we visited an abandoned call center in Cambodia.)

Hassan came on “Marketplace Morning Report” to talk about these findings and how consumers can protect themselves.

In all likelihood, tomorrow will be the most expensive midterm elections ever held. The top 20 donors alone poured $2 billion into this year’s races, a new analysis from the New York Times found. Here’s a gift link to the full list, which doesn’t even include the last two weeks.

Kai Ryssdal is fond of saying, on “Marketplace” and off, that the institutions of this economy rely on the institutions of this democracy. See you at the ballot box (and maybe the bar) tomorrow.