Big turnout is a bright spot in dark times
We’re nearly there. The 2020 election season comes to its official close (we say “official” because of the potential for confusion, chicanery or combat down the line) on Tuesday.
There’s not too much to be happy about in the way politics have played out this year. Americans are deeply divided, to the point that wearing masks as a matter of public health safety has become a partisan issue.
With even masks being a flashpoint, we Americans of course can’t get together on the much more difficult issue of racial justice. It has to be Black lives matter or blue lives matter, antifa groups versus overarmed white “militias,” not the reasonable position that the country must do more to overcome a historic legacy of bigotry, including in police/ civilian encounters, while supporting police departments that perform crucial and difficult jobs with better training in deescalation and more resources in such areas as mental health support on call-outs.
Our president has clouded the election process, suggesting any result other than a victory for him would be fraudulent and that somehow the American election system is supposed to declare an uncontestable result on election night, apparently without any concern for uncounted votes.
Many of us worry about confrontations, armed or otherwise, on or after election day.
But there is one big shiny positive amid all these dark clouds. It’s turnout.
By late last week, more than 80 million early votes had been cast around the country, either in person or by mail, setting the stage for a likely historic turnout level this year. Many states are already nearing their vote totals for 2016, the most recent presidential election year, even before Tuesday’s tallies are added in. Most of the early votes were coming from registered Democrats, but late reports showed Republicans narrowing the gap in some key swing states.
In New Mexico, the vote total was nearing 700,000 by five days before election day, well more than 80% of total 2016 turnout.
The sheer intensity that Donald Trump has
brought to our national politics surely accounts for some of the increase in voting from all sides. This flies in the face of longstanding conventional wisdom that mudslinging and negativity pushes people away from participating as voters.
Also, there have been efforts to make voting by mail easier amid the pandemic.
Another possible factor increasing turnout is a backlash against perceived efforts to suppress the vote. Most of us know someone who changed plans and voted early after it appeared that, by intentional design or otherwise, the U.S. Postal Service might be unable to successfully deliver mailed ballots. Voting early either at a polling place or by mail avoids the possibility of not being able to cast a vote due to harassment,
or worse, at the polls on election day.
And Trump’s repeated claims that the only legitimate election would be one he wins surely provided extra incentive for many to get out and vote to help prove him wrong.
Let’s hope that the only drama on election night is over who wins, and not whether some people didn’t get to vote because of unreasonably long lines, technical glitches, intimidation, Jim Crowlike obstacles at the polls or foreign hackers messing with the process.
We hope Trump’s wish for a final result on Tuesday night comes true, even with more votes than ever having to be counted. But something that simple seems totally outside 2020’s trend of if the worst can happen, it probably will.