Voting is underway in North Carolina: “The first votes of the presidential election have already been cast — and in a battleground state,” The Hill writes. “As of Sunday, 602 ballots had been returned by mail to election officials in North Carolina… By Saturday, almost half the states in the union will be issuing absentee ballots by mail, according to the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College. Among them will be the battleground of Virginia. Yet another key state, Iowa, will allow in-person voting from Sept. 27.”

The Hill: “With 50 days until the 2012 election, President Obama has a small, but clear lead over Mitt Romney. Obama is ahead of Romney by a narrow margin in most national polls, and has a slightly wider lead in most swing states, giving Romney almost no room for error.” And: “Advisers for Romney, including his wife, have already begun to downplay expectations for his performance” in the debates.

The New York Times on a bus pushing “voter fraud” and pushed by a right-wing group: “It might as well be Harry Potter’s invisible Knight Bus, because no one can prove it exists.”

A Philadelphia Inquirer poll finds Obama up 50-39% in Pennsylvania, and 51-37% in New Jersey.

The AP’s Raum wonders how much the monthly jobs reports really matter: “The government's monthly jobs report has become Washington's most anticipated and studied economic indicator, pounced upon by politicians, economists and journalists for snap judgments as the presidential election nears. But in the real world, most everybody else just looks around and figures things out for themselves.”

MASSACHUSETTS: Elizabeth Warren leads Scott Brown by 6, 50-44%, in a Western New England University poll.