Category: Politics

It’s election morning here in the United States (though the post won’t go live for a couple days), and many people are understandably anxious about the possibility of a convicted felon winning again. (If you’re somehow unsure where I stand politically, read my previous post here.)

I found myself explaining our election process to co-workers in Latin America yesterday. Not the messy, outdated Electoral College part, which would probably have made for a longer meeting. Rather I was detailing the different voting options and how that delays the official results. Ignoring the states that have switched entirely to mail-in voting, many states offer absentee ballots by mail – including here in Illinois – in addition to early voting. One of the reasons for that, as I explained, is because election day is not a federal holiday. Most of the people I was talking with live in countries where everything closes for election day, which encourages people to vote. But if you look at our federal holidays, many of them have become glorified shopping days, which means retail workers don’t have the day off. (For example, look back at how shopping crept into Thanksgiving Day celebrations before the pandemic.)

Before the pandemic, I typically voted early because the timing was better for my work and life schedules. Those ballots were typically electronic voting, offered at a smaller number of locations than election day, and can be tabulated with the other votes. To be clear, I’ve been voting early long enough that I have never been to my current voting site, having moved to this house shortly before the 2016 election.

Mail-in ballots are, of necessity, paper, and that’s where many of the delays in counting happen. The rules for requesting a paper ballot vary by state – some require that you be incapable of voting in person for medical or other reasons, while others (like Illinois) simply require that you request it. In fact, Illinois allows voters to sign up for recurring paper ballots, instead of having to request one each election. The request has to match your voter registration, of course, and the ballot includes an envelope that you sign – that signature gets compared to your voter registration. This simulates the process of walking into the voting location, showing your ID, and signing to request your ballot.

Each of those mailed in ballots has to be processed – that is, the information on the envelope confirmed – before the votes can be tabulated. When that processing can start varies by state, as does when the mail-in vote counting can start. In fact, it varies so much, Ballotpedia has an entire page on the subject. The important thing to note is that many states don’t allow absentee ballot counting to start until the polls close on election day, and several states allow ballots to count if they were postmarked by election day and received within the next couple weeks. This made a huge difference in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic when more of us voted by mail and states had to work through those ballots after election day.

The United States is reeling from yet another mass shooting. No, not the one in Buffalo, where a hate-filled racist specifically drove to an African-American neighborhood to kill people. Not the church shooting in Laguna. Those were last week. This week’s mass shooting (yes, that’s a terrible thing to be able to say) was at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

This country clearly has problems, both with hatred and guns, and they primarily stem from our political system. We have politicians offering up “thoughts and prayers” every time who then refuse to consider legitimate gun control efforts or address the increasing issue of domestic terrorism.

Our churches, our schools, even our grocery stores are not safe. What can I do? What can you do?

First and foremost, vote. If you feel a need to be a single-issue voter, let it be a vote to let the living keep living. After all, our Declaration of Independence listed “life” as the first of our inalienable rights. That means remembering that our 2nd amendment includes the phrase “well regulated Militia,” and letting every person who wants a gun buy one does not constitute “well-regulated.”

I don’t think that’s enough. We can work to change our political system with our votes, but we also need to work against hatred. If you read Heather Cox Richardson’s daily letters (and you should), she recently explained the history of the extreme polarization that we’re seeing between our political parties. Essentially, starting in 1990, certain political leaders worked to deliberately vilify the opposition simply for being members of the opposing party, urging party members to label their opponents in deliberately negative terms – using hashtags before they were even invented. This has been exacerbated by radio and TV talk show hosts who have promoted hatred, not necessarily because they believe it, but because it improves their ratings.

Your Democratic or Republican neighbor is not evil simply because they have different political views than you do. Your neighbor who appears to be Middle Eastern (and saw a rise in racism against them after 9/11), Asian (with a rise in racism during the pandemic), or any other nationality has no more to do with their homeland government’s decisions – assuming they’re not US citizens – as you do with ours, and certainly nothing to do with a virus that has killed millions. The United States has been a country of immigrants since the first Europeans invaded and stole land from the Native Americans, and the portrayal of our country as a place where anybody can prosper (however accurate) will always draw new people.

Like revolutions, the United States as a country was built on hope and on the concept that all men people are created equal. Take the time to meet your neighbors, especially if they look or sound different from you. You can combat hatred by learning to appreciate the differences in people around you.

On April 20, 2021, the police offer who murdered George Floyd was found guilty by a jury on all three charges. This was unquestionably the verdict that the United States needed given the viral video of the murder, the protests that followed, and the solid case that the prosecution presented. This was reinforced by President Biden immediately calling the family, then delivering a speech about the verdict, calling to purge systemic racism from our country.

Do not mistake this for justice.

Justice would have been George Floyd’s appearance in court for allegedly passing a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. And even that’s questionable, since it’s only illegal if there is criminal intent. (I don’t recall ever reading whether it was determined to be a real or counterfeit bill.) If I unknowingly receive and then spend a counterfeit bill, I’m as much a victim of the counterfeiters as whoever I’m trying to hand it off to. And, as a middle-aged white woman, the odds are against someone calling the police over it; they’d probably return the bill and tell me to get it checked at the bank, then ask for a different payment option.

In two months, we’ll learn if the sentencing matches the crime, and in August, the police officers who stood by and let the murder happen will be tried. By then, we may know if this really is a turning point, as Congress debates reforming the system.

It comes too late for many, including a teenage girl in Ohio, Ma’Khia Bryant, who was shot by police shortly before the verdict was announced.

If this is going to be a turning point – and I sincerely hope it is – then more police officers must realize what those who testified for the prosecution presumably already know: you cannot serve and protect while also perpetuating injustice.

The owner of a local dairy business, Jim Oberweis, who was the state senator for our area, ran for Congress against a first term incumbent, Representative Lauren Underwood. He declared victory the night of the election, knowing that a significant number of mail-in votes had not been counted yet. Ultimately, he lost by 5,374 votes.

That’s less than a two percent difference, so it wasn’t surprising when he opted to pay for a recount. Just a “discovery recount,” rather than a full one, but I suppose if he has the money to throw around and wants to waste it instead of using it to help people during a pandemic, it’s his choice. It was certainly within his legal rights as the losing candidate.

What’s beyond his rights as a losing candidate is his demand “seeking to void all 39,647 Kane County mail ballots, claiming they were not properly initialed by election judges.” (From this article: A day after Democrat Rep. Lauren Underwood sworn into second term, her GOP rival, Jim Oberweis seeks to overturn the election he lost – Chicago Sun-Times) The Chicago Tribune article on the subject explains “But Kane County uses electronic poll books to record election judges signatures, so they do not appear on the ballot.”

He wants to disenfranchise almost ten percent of the total votes (401,052 – from this website) in the race, based on a process that isn’t used in this county. You may recall I voted by mail for the first time this year. He wants to disenfranchise my vote, which was sent in and verified almost a month before Election day.

I have no sympathy for poor losers. And I can make my own milkshakes instead of supporting his business.

Polls closed Tuesday night on the contentious 2020 U.S. presidential election. Many states have been called for one candidate or the other already, despite ongoing counts; this is typically the case where one candidate has enough of a lead that the uncounted ballots won’t affect the outcome. Here are some simple examples of looking at those numbers, assuming there are 100 registered voters. For simplicity, we’ll pretend there are only 2 candidates.

1. 87% of the counting is complete; Candidate A has 60 votes to Candidate B’s 37. With only 13 ballots left to count, Candidate B can’t catch up to Candidate A. The result is called for Candidate A.
2. 76% of the counting is complete; Candidate A has 40 votes to Candidate B’s 36. The 24 remaining ballots could go either way, so the result is shown as leaning towards Candidate A, but is not called.
3. 99% of the counting is complete; Candidate A and B both have 49 votes. (Since you can choose not to vote on a particular race, I’m assuming that 1 person skipped it, mainly because I’m ignoring the 3rd party candidates for simplicity.) The 1 ballot remaining could go either way, so the result is not called.

On top of that, we add the complexity of increased mail-in voting during the pandemic. Many states already allowed absentee ballots, and have processes for handling them, though presumably not to the level we’re seeing in this election. The confusing part is how much those rules vary by state: some states only count the mailed ballot if it’s received by Election Day, while others want it to be postmarked by Election Day and received within a certain timeframe. That timeframe is also set at the state level, with no consistency – some are 3 days, some 14. An important thing to note is that most of these deadlines were set before the pandemic, and have affected counting in previous elections as well.

Voting in person is relatively easy, either on a computer (in Illinois, these print to a small paper that you verify before submitting) or on paper, which is then dropped in a box and later tabulated. Voting by mail is even easier, sitting in the comfort of your own home, yet adds complexity to the processing. The ballot envelope is linked to your voting record, so when it’s received, the signature must be verified, the envelope opened (carefully, so as not to damage the ballot), and in some states, there’s an additional secrecy envelope inside. Clearly, this is a more time-consuming process.

Adding to that is the fact that many states don’t allow counting the mail-in ballots to start until Election Day, even if they’re received well before that. I can only imagine the staffing nightmares every election cycle, having to train people in something they’ll only do once or twice a year, if that.

Each state has set a deadline for certifying their results; this must fall before the Electoral College voting, which is scheduled for December 14th this year. From a quick glance through Ballotpedia and other informational websites, these trend towards the first week of December.

So how long does it take to count the votes? Legally, it could be up to a month in some states, though they’ll leave time for recounts and such before the state’s certification date. Realistically, it takes as long as it needs to make sure that every legally cast vote is counted. Counting every vote accurately is far more important than counting them quickly.