Election Day + 1

The morning dawned foggy here in Northern California and then gradually cleared to blue skies, which mirrored the state of the US election. 

After the polls closed on the east coast we got sucked in to ABC News election coverage. As we watched the early tussle over Florida it became clear that there was not going to be a 'blue wave' for Biden or even a clear win, and deep gloom set in. Other states seemed to be leaning towards Trump with huge margins. Even the journalists seemed amazed, though this was the exact 'nightmare' scenario they had been warning us to expect: long delays while mailed-in ballots were counted, states breaking early for Republicans because election day votes would be counted first, followed by Biden closing the gap as mailed-in ballots were counted. 

It was hard to stop watching even though there wasn't much happening apart from a lot of talking heads talking about how there wasn't much happening. We suffered through the preposterous 'statement' from Trump just after midnight East-Coast time ("This is a fraud on the American public... We were getting ready to win this election, frankly we did win this election...") and stuck around for a few more hours doing electoral college math (I now can recite at least three paths through swing state victories for Biden to get to the 270 electoral college votes). We stayed up until 1am at which point the East Coast anchors started to change shift and sleep seemed like a good idea. I went to bed feeling strangely optimistic, but Mr Husband had gone into a spiral of doom.  

During the actual day of the election, Thing One and I had driven to the pet store. We needed crickets for Ziggy the Frog whose hunger doesn't pause for elections. We drove past the voting place for our area and looked for long COVID-spaced lines, but it was completely deserted. Everyone I've talked to around here either mailed in their ballot weeks ago or used drop boxes. I was surprised to see that the voting place in our town is in a church - the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church. I'm trying to remember if that ever happened in other countries where I've voted. I've voted in schools and W.I. halls (women's institutes, a very English phenomenon) and I've done lots of mail-in ballots and proxy voting (thanks Mum!), but I don't think I've ever voted in a Christian place of worship. It seems like an odd choice for a country that, at least theoretically, purports separation of church and state.   

I haven't been able to find any information about what is considered acceptable for polling stations in different countries but there is a ton of research about how where you vote influences how you vote. Socio-economic surroundings of a polling place, ease of access by public transport, condition of the buildings will all influence whether people feel comfortable voting. And type of building plays a role as well with research showing that, for example,  people are less likely to vote in favour of issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, stem cell research if they are voting in a church or parish hall. 

By the way, the word poll comes from an old middle English word meaning 'head' - so a poll is doing a 'head count'. 

Something I find it very hard to get used to in the US is the red-blue reversal compared to the colour coding I grew up with in UK politics. In the UK the lefties are red, the conservatives are blue, the lib-dems are orange or yellow, and the greens are obviously green. Here the Democrats are blue and the Republicans are red. Totally bizarre and kind of funny given that for much of the world red is associated with the left, and definitely with communism. Apparently red was the choice of the French revolutionaries since it signified 'the blood of the angry workers'. 

Historically the use of red and blue in the US has switched back and forth between the parties, and there has even been some green and yellow in the mix over the years. As recently as the 1996 election half the major media outlets used blue for Democrats and red for Republicans, and the other half used the reverse! It wasn't until the long drawn out Bush Gore election in 2000, when the electoral map was a constant on TV screens, much as it is at the moment, that all the major media outlets began to converge on a consistent colour coding for the parties. So now we have 'red states' and 'blue states' and even 'purple states' that swing back and forth between the two parties. 

When we woke up this morning as predicted many of Trump's leads had narrowed in the purple states with the counting of the mailed-in ballots. Nobody was quite rejoicing yet,  but there was a definite glimmer of excitement. Pundits started saying that perhaps it hadn't been such a bad election for Biden after all. Suddenly lots of states that had been 'red' for decades were in play. Governors and Secretaries of State for Arizona and Georgia were holding press conferences about how the vote counting was progressing, when we could expect to hear results. I became a self-appointed expert in tie interpretation, claiming that the choice of tie colour carried hidden messages about the vote counts. The election official for Georgia, which has been solidly Republican since 1972, was wearing a purple tie! The Arizona official had a red and blue striped tie, but the blue stripes were larger than the red stripes! My theory held up pretty well until the dude from Wisconsin showed up wearing no tie at all, top button undone! 

What does seem clear, at least at this point 24 hours after polls closed, is that there were only a few isolated incidents of violence and voter intimidation. Experts estimated that Trump's call to arms  to 'protect' against voter fraud could have mobilized a militia of 50,000. So far it has not materialized. 

It seems hard to believe this is the United States, the bastion of democracy, that I am writing about.

International observers have been in the US since September to monitor the election and so far have found no evidence of systematic wrong-doing in the election process.  Urszula Gacek, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is leading the long-term observation of the elections, said “The election administration, the machinery in place, the infrastructure, supported by engaged civil society, it seems to have passed the test. This was despite a pandemic, many legal and technical challenges and deliberate attempts by the incumbent president to weaken confidence in the election process.” Another observer from the OSCE, Michael Georg Link, said "Baseless allegations of systematic deficiencies, notably by the incumbent president, including on election night, harm public trust in democratic institutions." I wonder if the US will ever recover its standing in the world. 

Wednesday is a half day of school for the kids and by 1pm we were all going a little election stir crazy so we jumped in the car and drove to the coast. It was a perfect fall day, a clear blue sky, the searing, aggressive heat of the summer sun replaced by a warm, golden afternoon light casting long shadows. 

On the way to the beach we saw a Biden-Harris lawn sign - an unusual sight in California though not because of lack of support for the Democrat ticket. Current tallies in California show Biden has 65.3% of the vote. A friend had tried to get the campaign to send her bumper stickers and lawn signs but was told that none were allocated for California, all the focus was on those purple swing states. She made her own. 

Down on the beach a few people walked along the water's edge. I could hear that all the talk was about the election. Someone shouted, "They are calling Michigan for Biden!" out to a bunch of surfers off a rocky point. There were cheers across the water.

It may well be foggy here tomorrow morning, the cooler nights at this time of year often bring morning dew and mist. But I'm hopeful that some of the political fog will have cleared.