waiting patiently

Is all that any of us can – or should – do.

The US is still a democracy – it is time to let the process run its course.

That means obeying all the laws, all the court order, and letting people do their jobs.

The post office is required by law to deliver ballots to be counted. This is not an choice on the part of left leaning, right leaning, or bored/tired/ill personnel. Legally, letters, once they getting a box must get picked up, sorted, delivered. There are standards, time limits. Managers are normally held accountable. This week should be no different.

Those ballots are equally important, and probably even more so, in local, regional, and state elections. Neither of the main parties should be able to interfere with the Post Office – perhaps all the ballots could be for third party candidates? Or my daughter’s cat? None of that matters.

Counting in each state is determined by that state’s laws and overseen by the election officials. I don’t gs inet an opinion. I don’t get to chose if my or my neighbor’s ballot is accepted – except by whether or not an individual ballot meets my particular state’s requirements.

Unlike when I have voted in past elections (Florida if anyone cares between the early 1980-2016), my vote gets counted. Florida, in the past, sometimes counted absentee ballots and sometimes didn’t. Let me explain: if you were voting by absentee and were out of country, you could vote at the state level, but not in local elections. As a result, the mail-in ballots were held till the physical count was in. If the number of absentee ballots (usually 32K give or take) was greater than the difference between the candidates, those ballots were counted. If not, why bother since those votes were not going to change the election. Or so the thinking went.

Now, with the number of mail in ballots exceeding in person voting – obviously all the ballots need to be counted. And each state has it’s own laws. There are those states which count as received (results are not released until the polls close). There are those who don’t count until after the polls close. There are states that go by the post mark date. Others by the received date. It is not uniform. It doesn’t matter if you, I, or someone who lives in DC likes it, agrees with it, or throws a temper tantrum. It is time to respect the law. The political parties don’t decide, the news outlets don’t decide, and most certainly the candidates themselves don’t decide. We, as voters, decide and that decision doesn’t occur until all our votes are counted.

Perhaps the time is now right to have a national standard. We are no longer in the 1700s when it could take weeks for ballots to arrive. At the same time, we have grown as a country and grown up. You don’t have to be a white male landowner to be entitled to vote. You didn’t use to have to prove citizenship if you were one of those white males. (In many places you still don’t as long as you “sound right.”)

So what we all need to do is sit back, relax, take a swallow of our favorite beverage, be it coffee, tea, hot chocolate, water, or something with a significant kick and demonstrate to the rest of the world that we are adults and can execute calmly, safely, and objectively the election process. The process that we have been standing first in line and pointing fingers in other countries when we don’t think that they have been fair.

Perhaps cleaning up our own house is in order.

 

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About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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