By the day before Election Day, 2020, over 100 million Americans had voted. In some states, Texas, for example, more people voted early than the total votes in the last election. From the start, this would be an unusual election. This was the first time an impeached president has run for reelection. It is the first major election during a worsening pandemic. Even the campaigning was different.
They say, you know who they are don’t you, that you never want to see the inside of a sausage factory. This election has many of the same characteristics. The President, who had contracted the virus himself, continued denying its seriousness, even to the point of mocking those who followed the health guidelines. He held large rallies across the country. His supporters enthusiastically attended, standing elbow to elbow without masks, shouting their approval of his platform and his behavior. Stanford University estimated that the people who attended his rallies accounted for 30,000 cases of the virus and over 700 deaths because they caught the virus and unknowingly spread it to family, friends, and co-workers.
Former Vice President Biden spent most of his campaign time broadcasting from the basement of his home, holding Zoom meetings, and issuing podcast messages. In the last few weeks leading up to today, Election Day, he and Kamala Harris spent more time in the field drumming up votes. His rallies were small and included rallies where people, wearing masks, stayed in their cars and tooted their approval of his stump speech.
The Republican Party spent a lot of time and effort trying to make it difficult for people to vote or to submit their votes in a timely fashion. There is no other way to describe it than serious cases of voter suppression. It was unseemly at best.
The President is calling for victory to be announced tonight and to ignore all of the votes that have not been counted as of midnight. There are reports that he will declare victory from the White House very early in the evening.
Nobody has any idea as of this morning who will eventually win the election or when all the votes will be counted. It may take weeks to count them all. Stay calm. Each state has its own rules about how many days it can take to count the votes. It is seldom that all votes are counted on election day.
The election is so contentious that stores in cities around the country are boarding up their window for an expected rash of riots, marches by armed vigilantes, and general unrest. America is supposed to be the beacon on the hill for those who yearn to live free. Let us hope that at the end of the day we will live up to our dream, that the voting process will be calm and that the vote counting will be efficient. Let us hope that the two candidates can accept the will of the people in a gracious manner.
