Pope Leo Casts a US Midterm Ballot, a First for the Papacy

Pope Leo has voted in the US midterm elections, submitting a ballot by post in his native Chicago, according to the Guardian, which reports it as the first time a sitting pontiff is known to have cast a ballot in any political election in history. CBS News reported that the Vatican said the pope was exercising his right as a US citizen ahead of next week's midterms.

The two accounts agree on the mechanics and diverge on emphasis. The Guardian leads with the breach of precedent; CBS leads with the Vatican's description of an ordinary civic duty, a mail-in ballot counted in the city where the pope was born. The Guardian also records that Leo, who holds US citizenship, has clashed with Donald Trump over several issues.

A reigning pontiff is sovereign of Vatican City, the enclave inside Rome, and the Holy See has generally kept its distance from partisan contests abroad. The Chicago ballot puts a papal name into an American election count for the first time in the record the Guardian describes.