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Voting 2020
In less than 72 hours America will either elect a new Preisdent or Keep the Old one.. Over 90 million people have voted early, either by absentee ballot already received or by in-person early voting. That’s well over 65 percent of the total votes cast in 2016. (If you have not yet mailed in your absentee ballot, do not do it now! Deliver it to an official drop box or walk it into a voting office, or exchange it for a regular ballot to vote in person on Tuesday.)
The bigger picture, however, should include the burst of enthusiasm and determination to vote and to vote early — the relative ease with which early voting unfolded in red and blue states with no record of no-excuse early voting. The arguments for limiting more convenient forms of voting are crumbling before our eyes, and with them a major pillar of voter suppression (e.g., fewer polling places in minority areas, older machines in Democratic strongholds).
The determination to vote early — a function of an impressive Democratic effort to encourage people to cast votes as early as possible — means relatively smaller lines and fewer snafus on Election Day. And, to boot, it undercuts Republicans’ mischief-making, as FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver explains:
One is tempted to say that once Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and other right-wing jurists and attorneys figure this out, they will stop trying to block late-arriving ballots. (It’s bad enough to engage in results-oriented jurisprudence intended to benefit one party; it’s downright comical when you get the “wrong” results from your side’s perspective.)
In states in which early voting is tabulated as it comes in (or at least well in advance of Nov. 3), keep in mind that once ballots are removed from envelopes (to be fed into machines, or to be ready to feed into machines) the signature-match challenge evaporates. There is no way to tie a specific ballot to a specific voting envelope. And, of course, 90 million votes cast early are 90 million fewer voters deterred by illegal intimidation.
Now that states under the worst circumstances have adjusted to massive early voting, there is no reason to abandon it if and when we conquer covid-19. Some have referred to this as “flattening the voting curve” — spreading out resources and staff over a longer time so the system is not overwhelmed and the most vulnerable get the accommodations they need.
If, for example, the next Congress and president pass a Voting Rights Act reform bill that reinstates pre-clearance (states that attempted to thwart efforts to ease voting during covid-19 should come under the DOJ’s jurisdiction), requires all states to institute no-excuse early voting, and even provides a funding source, what exactly would be Republicans’ objection (other than it lets more people vote more conveniently)?
The question is not whether there will be screwups or delays or court challenges, but rather whether they are prevalent enough in key states to mess up the results.
IF YOU HAVEN'T VOTED ALREADY! VOTE ON NOVEMBER 3rd!
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KEEPING THE FAITH: RANDOM PRAYERS "ON THE DOWNLOAD"
DEAR GOD: My heart is heavy with my own failures. I try to excuse them and explain to myself why they occurred, because I want to be free from the feeling that I am unworthy and incapable of being all that I can be. But I find it easier to accept your forgiveness than to forgive myself. When I try to forgive myself, it seems I only remember and re-play my failures in my mind, and a sense of hopelessness floods over me. Help me to know that my past actions are a part of my growing humanity and that even when I fail to live up to what is your will for me, every single moment can be lived anew. Remind me that refusing to forgive myself only keeps me from experiencing that newness. Assure me of the truth that by casting “my sins into the depth of the sea”, you have freed me to discard them myself and live the next moment as if it were my first, for indeed it is. I ask this for the sake of your love. Amen.