Time to Think

Tips For Watching Election Results ! #308

By Hank Silverberg

Watching election results these days can be an up and down drama, distorted by political pundits, different counting rules in each state- and frankly--propaganda.

Many American's will skip the wall-to-wall play-by-play that starts an hour or two before the polls close and goes on ad-nauseum into the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

But the days of simply watching a movie all night and finding out the results on the 11 o'clock news just won't work anymore.

We will not know who the next president will be until at least Wednesday morning at the earliest, or maybe a few days or even weeks later.

Don't be confused by it all.

There are lots of votes to count. For example, more than 72 million people have already voted early, either in person, by mail or by absentee ballot.

In some states those votes have already been counted but won't be made public until the polls close in that state. Then all of a sudden on election night, you will see a large number of votes in that state. But they won't mean much until they count the votes cast on election day and the absentee ballots which are always counted last, sometimes not until Wednesday morning.

In other states, they are prohibited from counting any votes until the polls close and the in-person early voting ballots are counted, just like any precinct count on election night.

Mail-in votes are also treated differently in each state. Some states count them in advance and don't release the count on election day, some are not counted until all the election day and in-person early votes are counted.

Some states allow any mail-in or absentee votes postmarked on election day, that might not arrive for three or four days after the election, to also be counted. That means in a close race in a congressional district, it may take a week to declare a winner.

And if it's a key county in a swing state, in a close race, it could hold up national results for at least a week or more.

In all likelyhood, we may have an idea of who is leading as we head to bed about midnight on election night, but don't be surprised if that number changes dramatically by the time you wake up or by the time you finish your work day on Wednesday.

This scenario is for a normal, close election. But of course, nothing involving Donald Trump is normal. Unless he is winning by a landslide, a very improbable scenario, he will be shouting "fraud, scam, rigged" and will have an army of attornies filing lawsuits across the country as the polls close.

And heaven help us if there are any REAL snafus in a close district anywhere in the country.

Don't expect immediate releif from the drama and stress we have all been thorugh for the last two years or more.

The election of 2024 is likely to drag into January of 2025, at least.

Things To Watch For When You Go To The Polls

There are some things to watch for when you go to the polls. Here is a good example from a story in The Washington Post this week. A local principal from Fairfax County who immigrated from Columbia in 2002 and has been an American citizen since 2011, was asked to prove her citizenship when she tried to vote early this past week. She had provided her driver's license as I-D which is a requirement in Virginia, but the poll watcher questioned her eligibility based soley on her name, Liza Burrel Aldana.

"Are you a citizen? Do you have anything in your purse to prove you are a citizen?"

Aldana, who was the newspaper's "Teacher of the Year" in 2023, told the Post she asked, "why would I carry anything like that with me?"

Attempts by non-citizens are extremely rare. According to the Post story, an audit by Georgia's Repulican party showed only 20 non-citizens were registered to vote out of 8.2 million people registered in that state.

It's against Virginia law for a poll worker to require or even ask for anything other than an accepted form of idenfitication when you vote.

The Virginia Department of Elections, among others, include current or expired Virginia driver’s licenses, employee or student IDs with a photograph, a military I-D or current utility bill or bank statement as legal forms of I-D.

If you are confronted with this type of questioning about your citizenship or see it happen to someone else while you are voting, quickly report it to the state Board of Elections.

Fairfax County is one of the most diverse counties in the country, so this nonsense can happen anywhere.

Snowless Mt. Fuji, More Sign of Climate Change?

For the first time in over 130 years, there is no snow on Japan's Mt. Fuji as November begins.

Tempertures at the mountain's 12,000-foot peak reached 60 degrees on Halloween, extending the

(No snow on Mt Fuji, Public Domain)

record for no snow in October. It's the longest period ever with no snow on the peak, according to Japan's Meteorological Agency.

Snow typically shows up on the mountain on Honshu Island around October first. The previous late day for snow at the peak was October 26, set in 1955 and 2016.

Karen Prestegard, a geology professor at the University of Maryland, told ABC news that sweltering heat in Japan over the summer is probably part of the reason. And high ocean tempertures which lead to more perciptation on the island could be washing away any snow that does fall.

Climate Central reported at least 74 Japanese cities recorded tempertures 86 degrees Fahrenheit or higher in the first week of October.

Earlier this year, the journal Nature pointed to some new research that climate change had reduced snowpacks in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere in the last 40 years.

Mt. Fuji is an inactive volcano. Its last recorded eruption was in 1707.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/japans-mount-fuji-breaks-record-snow-october/story?id=115301410

With the election on the way, I thought some entertainment might be a good insert for this weeks block. This music comes from my friend John Bolster who says he was inspired to write this song from Sy Kahn's old song about Ronald Reagan "Government on Horseback. So here is John Bolster with "A "Man to Fix It All"

"And Yes, this is sarcasm"

Dumbest Quote of The Week!

This week's dumbest quote comes from the President of the United States, Joe Biden. Yes, he is still president despite the GOP's continuous attempt to credit everything he says or did to Kamala Harris.

It was his reaction to a comedian's comments at the big MSG Trump rally that got Biden in trouble. The comedian had compared Puerto Rico to a pile of garbage.

Responding to that highly disparaging remark in an on-line appearance, Mr. Biden said:

"The only garbage I see floating out there is-- his supporters--his-his demonizaton of Latinos is uncunsionable and it's unamerican."

The White House then clarified the remark to say Biden was referring to the "supporter's" comments, meaning the comedian and not your average MAGA Trump supporter.

All this was then made worse when the official White House transcript was changed to put an apstrophe in the word "supporter's".

Mr Biden's early career in the Senate was marked by lots of gaffes and dumb comments like this. He had managed to avoid them for most of his presidential campaign four years ago, and his presidency. But the old Joe Biden gaffer came back this week. It's a pity that most Americans may now remember him as a bumbling old man instead of the man who saved the country from ruin by bringing us out of a deadly pandemic that had devastated our economy.

(Your comments and suggestions are welcome)

My recent book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at: HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature)