Patience and peace are our next steps in 2020 election
2020 has been difficult. There is no doubt. The COVID-19 pandemic, racial tensions, and an election rife with toxicity and uncertainty has Americans truly and understandably on edge.
Even with all ballots cast, the winner of our nation’s highest office, the party who will control Congress and the makeup of state legislatures across the country may not be known for some time. And that’s OK. There is no legal requirement for election results to be known on Election Day, but there is a constitutional mandate that our elections be free and fair.
Because of COVID-19 and newer, bipartisan laws to make elections more accessible to citizens, more than 90 million ballots were cast by Americans through early voting or mailin ballot before Election Day. Pennsylvania counties large and small pleaded to be able to precanvass ballots to have them ready to be counted on Election Day. Not given that support, the incredible volume of mail ballots received, combined with in-person voting, will take election officials several days to fully count every vote. Many other states are in the same position.
The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy. The right for every one of those votes to be counted is an essential part of that ethos. The winner will be decided by voters. And the democratic will of the majority must be respected.
It is vital for all of us to be patient and allow every vote to be verified and counted as we have throughout American history.
Until those votes are tallied, we must respect the integrity of our democratic process and wait patiently for the final certified results.
Enter the strife. President Trump has spent the past several months sowing seeds of distrust in our democratic process. He has incited violence. He has refused to address in any meaningful or productive way the pleas for equal rights and justice for Black and Brown Americans. He plays down the COVID-19 virus, anguishing those who have become ill or lost loved ones to the pandemic. He refuses to commit to a peaceful transition of power should voters choose a new president. He has thousands of lawyers at the ready and has said the new U.S. Supreme Court he crafted can award him the election should the votes not go his way.
Protests on all sides are expected in the coming days and weeks. As strong as our right to vote, America is a nation founded on practicing various means of protest to effect change or highlight injustice. The right to protest is so rooted in U.S. history that it is enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution.
These protests must remain peaceful. The violence, looting and destruction of property that inappropriately finds its way into peaceful protest derails the meaning of the message. It turns public support away from the goal of the demonstration and into a distorted narrative about keeping the peace.
Rather than tear things down we must build each other up. We also must condemn violence and those who seek only to sow division. We should challenge our communities to come together in the name of justice and equality and democracy.
Protests are about standing as a unified voice and letting one another know that we’re not alone. Protests are about speaking out for those who don’t have or haven’t had a voice on their own. The minority of destructive acts we have witnessed in person or on the news cannot overshadow the majority of peaceful assemblies fighting for justice.
Together, and as we wait for the 2020 election to conclude, we can peacefully protest injustice while condemning all violence, ultimately ensuring the rights and value of all Pennsylvanians. We must not waver from that goal.