A reminder that every vote matters
The ballots that aren’t cast often have the bigger impact on elections, opting for apathy.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on mailin ballots. The state high court ruled that ballots cast by mail could be counted if they were received as late as 5 p.m. Nov. 6, three days after the polls open and close, bearing a postmark before 8 p.m. Nov. 3.
The nine-seat court split down the center. Four justices — John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — rejected the state Republicans’ request to throw a roadblock in front of the Pennsylvania ruling. Four others — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas — wanted to stop accepting the ballots when the polls closed.
With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat empty since her September death, there was no majority, obligating the court to let the case go.
This might seem like a precursor of the rest of the court’s decisions until a new member — likely Judge Amy Coney Barrett — dons a black robe. It’s not.
It’s a metaphor for the Nov. 3 election.
People read the information. They weighed their options. They took positions.
And when it was all said and done, the vote that swayed the final result was the vote that wasn’t cast. The one that couldn’t be counted.
According to the Federal Election Commission, there were 6,165,478 votes cast in Pennsylvania for the 2016 presidential race. That was about 60% of the voting-age population. The margin of victory was fewer than 45,000 votes. Millions were of voting age but didn’t register.
Everyone has a tendency to focus on what swayed the people who picked one candidate over the other. What had the bigger impact was the ballots that weren’t cast.
Every ballot should be cast. Whether Democrat, Republican or otherwise, that choice should be made because not voting is a choice in itself. It doesn’t choose the status quo. It opts for apathy — a stunning lack of interest that can have a lingering impact.
And that is why it is important to count the ballots that are cast. All of them.
Because a decision should be made by the people who took the time to make the choice — not the people who didn’t participate.
Shame on Disney
Disney, like many high-profile American corporations in recent years, has been lacing its films, shows and cultural offerings with social justice messaging, to the delight or irritation of various fan groups.
For anyone taken in by corporate virtue signaling, however, allow us to disillusion you: It’s all about the bottom line.
Take Disney. For a company that professes loudly about human rights the “#BoycottMulan” movement that flared up in the wake of the company’s most recently released live-action adaptation must be embarrassing.
The movement’s grievances focused on the fact that in the film’s credits, Disney thanks government entities in Xinjiang province, home to the country’s Uighur population. The Uighurs are a Muslim ethnic minority facing increasing persecution under the Chinese Communist Party. The United Nations has stated that more than 1 million Uighurs are being held in modern-day concentration camps.
Add to this the CCP’s speechblocking of the social media hashtag #BoycottMulan and star actor Liu Yifei’s public support for Hong Kong police, criticized for tactics in quelling prodemocracy protesters in recent months, and Disney has a full-on hypocritical rodeo on its hands.
According to this corporation, police brutality is America’s greatest sin, but it’s OK in China. Our democracy is eroding and must be protected, but never mind the Chinese Communist Party’s imposition of “National Security Law” in Hong Kong. U.S. treatment of minorities is disgusting, but turn the other cheek when China actively imprisons more than a million citizens.
U.S. politicians have been increasingly vocal in condemnation of China, from concerns about intellectual privacy and military games to data mining and the country’s questionable communication in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Corporations like Disney should be ashamed of sacrificing ethical standards for the sake of accessing a lucrative market. If they’re going to move into the business of selling virtue, they should condemn evil at home or abroad, regardless of the market value. After all, if corporations are going to pretend to have souls, then they should show guilt when caught in acts of bad faith.