Hoping for better in election decisions may be wishful thinking

Naturally we do not have a declaration yet as to who will be our next president, as ballots in battleground states across the Rust Belt are still being counted.

OK, let’s tippy-toe into this situation. First, if you are a voter in Pennsylvania or in a major market like Atlanta, Detroit or Milwaukee, how are you not better prepared? Everyone is watching, and you-know-who currently in the Oval Office is watching everything like a hawk, waiting to pounce with subpoenas and attorneys.

How, in a day and age when I can record a TV show from two days ago through my phone while programming my coffee maker for tomorrow morning on a handheld super-computer, are we still counting ballots this way?

Yes, I understand that states set their own election laws and regulations. That’s great. (Side note: That said, the Pennsylvania AG taking to Twitter and acting like a doofus is not a good look. At all. His preemptive strikes at Trump only fuel concerns about fairness in the vote-counting process.)

Yes, I understand that all of the legal and properly filed votes deserve to and must be counted. That’s how this works and how it should work.

I also understand if mailed-in votes in states such as Pennsylvania were postmarked by Tuesday, they will be counted, and there clearly are some not yet in hand.

But think back to any major event or endeavor in your life, be it getting your driver’s license, going to a new school or courting your spouse. When the big moments happen, and the spotlight was the brightest, you made sure you were at your spit-shined best, right?

When you see a state trooper off to the side of I-75 south, you slow down and make sure you are not exceeding the speed limit.

When you knew a big history test was coming in a few days, you studied and prepared because there was a lot at stake.

When you met your beloved’s parents, you were dressed to the nines and made dang sure you knew which fork to use at each course. I know I did.

So, some state laws and unprepared elections administrators in key states with ballots outstanding are frustratingly unacceptable and unacceptably frustrating.

And that’s even more true as it fuels the conspiracy fires that flame Donald Trump’s 11th-hour legal Hail Mary.

As for his rhetoric, well, we all knew Trump would claim victory prematurely. He did. And we all knew he would reference taking the vote counting to court. He did that, too.

But here’s a hope that some other powers that be — here’s looking at you, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins,

Mitch McConnell and a slew of others in the GOP — also have a say in Trump’s whole “I’m gonna win this any way I can” strategy of using the courts and an army of lawyers to prevail. In short, will anyone with a backbone urge the president to stand down? To let the vote-counting process take its course, for the good of the whole country?

Of course, that would mean they would have to stand up to Trump for the first time since he took his “drain the swamp” fight to D.C.

I hope the election outcome doesn’t depend on court proceedings, because as much as I do not want Joe Biden to win, this tug of war is not worth the precedent of challenging the peaceful transition of power that our country’s democracy has hinged on for 231 years.

But somehow I know those hopes are just that, hopes.