Thumbs up, thumbs down

ELECTION 2020

Thumbs up to Connecticut voters who turned out in record numbers, in-person or by absentee ballot, to participate in democracy through the presidential election Tuesday. Voters also chose who would represent them for the next two years in the U.S. House of Representatives and the state General Assembly. An estimated 1.74 million votes were cast in this election, 2 percent more than four years ago. The nation also saw a surge of engaged voters, who gave President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. the most votes of any candidate in a U.S. election, and in an indication of the interest, President Donald Trump received the second highest ever.

Thumbs up to all the local election officials and poll workers who made this election, carried out in a pandemic, go as smoothly as possible. The need for social distancing of six-feet apart meant long lines, but mostly they moved quickly; there were glitches here and there, as expected with large numbers of people voting absentee for the first time, but not widespread problems. And while public safety and hospital officials, as well as business owners, were prepared for possible unrest, none materialized at the polls in Connecticut.

Thumbs up to peaceful rallies and protests Saturday after former Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. carried Pennsylvania and became the winner. Rallies, such as one in the state’s capital city, were matched with protests by supporters of President Donald Trump, but all were able to exercise their First Amendment rights freely.

Thumbs down, in a week of mostly “ups,” to the growing number of COVID-19 cases in Connecticut, the country, and much of the world. More cities and towns were placed on a “red alert” status and Gov. Ned Lamont had to roll back some of the Phase 3 reopening guidelines to restrict the size of gatherings. But a Thumbs Up, keeping in the “election edition” theme this week, to Yale School of Medicine Professor Marcella Nunez-Smith on her appointment as one of three co-chairs of President-elect Joseph Biden’s coronavirus task force, according to CNN. She is an associate professor of internal medicine, public health and management and founding director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center.

Thumbs up to this non-election news: The humpback whale that appeared to be entangled in lobster-pot ropes and was moving slowly, according to a report to the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, was seen free on Thursday off Montauk Point, in Long Island Sound. The U.S. Coast Guard Center in New Haven received a “heads up” as the conservation society, East Hampton Marine Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Montauk, coordinating with NOAA Fisheries New England/Mid-Atlantic, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, the Center for Coastal Studies, and the Town of East Hampton, New York, searched for the whale with the intent to help it. Sometimes we just need a feel-good animal story.

Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media The day after the election, outside Town Hall in Greenwich.