Some Election Thoughts

First, I'm glad that all the yard signs are gone and all of the political ads on television have ceased. No matter what happens from here on out, we can all unite in our agreement of how much we hate the sheer din of a late-stage Presidential election cycle.

Second, this thing doesn't appear to be over - even though the Biden folks have said they think it is. A) Biden hasn't been certified as the victor of any contested state and it looks like ballot recounts will likely occur in at least 2-3 battleground states. Does it look likely that it's over? Yes. Is that assured? No.

Third, I am struck in looking at the results we do have by just how much this election was about ONE person - Donald Trump. You either liked him (or liked what was happening for you, during his presidency) or you disliked him, but either way, it seems clear that most people felt strongly enough about Trump, one way or the other, to go out and vote. I don't think this election had anything to do with Biden or the country's faith in him as a leader - and that's evidenced by the fact that the Democrats didn't take over a majority in the Senate and actually lost several seats in the House. If there was some country-wide sentiment about the vision of the Republican party, then I think you would have seen a Biden presidency and a Democrat majority in the Senate and an expanded majority in the House, but we didn't see that. This election was unique in terms of U.S. Presidential elections in the sense that it was about one person. We felt strongly about Trump, but much less so on the rest of it.

Fourth - we have some serious issues about the execution of elections moving forward. Mail-in balloting was way up this year because of the pandemic, but I'm not sure that the process for handling it is secure. I'm not saying that fraud occurred, but the OPPORTUNITY for fraud was there in a way that it hasn't been in past elections. First, every state has to employ the same rules. I'm sorry Pennsylvania, but you can't decide that you're going to accept ballots as long as they were post-marked by election day. No one is in the dark about when election day is and if you can't get your mail-in ballot mailed well before Election Day occurs, then go to the polls on the day. Second, Florida seemed to get everything right - count the mail-in ballots as they come in so that on Election Day, you have that information ready to go and can simply add the Election Day votes to the total for a quick and straight-forward counting process. There is no reason, even if we allow mail-in voting, that we can't have some solid results, with most precincts in and counted, the night of Election Day.

Fifth, I find it to be either tone deaf, or outright mean-spirited, that people like Michelle Obama would say that everyone who voted for Trump is voting for a 'status quo [...of] lies, hate, chaos and division." That is extremely reductionist and is really a slap in the face to almost 1/2 of the people who voted. The Left would serve itself well to recognize the fact that more people voted for Trump in 2020 than did in 2016 and also that fringes of their own party have done more to sow the seeds of 'hate, chaos and division' than anyone else. It is to their own political detriment that they continue this rhetoric.