My kids' linguistic habits reveal their alarming new way of marking time. Every day now I hear them launch sentences with, for example, "Back when school was a thing. . . ." or, "Before coronavirus. . . ."
I remember, back when school was a thing, worrying about this year's presidential election in Arizona, a candidate for the tipping point state and also one in which most ballots are cast by mail. What would happen if the Democratic candidate—we now know it's going to be Biden—won Pennsylvania and Michigan while Trump hung on to Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and all the other states he won last time in the South and Midwest? As returns then started coming in from the West, all would hinge on Arizona. In the nightmare scenario, Trump holds a small lead on election night that Biden overcomes when, in the following days, mailed ballots are added to the tally. This is exactly what happened in Arizona's US Senate race in 2018. On election night, November 6, the Republican, Martha McSally, narrowly led Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, but was overtaken as more and more mailed ballots were counted over the next few days. By November 12, Sinema was ahead by more than 2% and McSally conceded.
It seemed to me naïve to think that in similar circumstances Trump would concede. Now that coronavirus is a thing, and many states are moving to adopt voting by mail, we need to worry about a lot more than Arizona. Trump and his apologists have made it clear that they are opposed to voting by mail, which they assert is riddled with fraud. The only evidence for this seems to be that votes cast by mail trend Democratic, but of course there is a good reason for that. I can't stand Trump, but I'm a member of his core demographic group—older, white, retired, male, time-on-my-hands, someone used to feeling a swell of Norman Rockwell emotion while strolling into my polling place on election day. Such people, I'm sorry to say, self-select for preferring the Republicans. Younger people call bullshit on standing in line to vote, especially when coronavirus is very much "a thing." Moreover, in September they have no idea what their work schedule will be on a Tuesday six or eight weeks hence. Many are gig workers who may not even know whether they'll be home or in a different part of the country or world on election day. One of the relatively few things I have in common with these people is a low opinion of our president and his party.
Plus that it's bullshit to have to vote in person on election day (even though I enjoy it).
Pennsylvania had a primary election on June 2. The above chart shows, by county and party, what percentage of the vote total was from ballots that were mailed in. For example, in Allegheny County, second alphabetically and home to Pittsburgh, Republican candidates got 48% of their votes from mailed ballots, compared to 74% for Democrats. As you can easily see, Allegheny is no anomaly. In every county, Democrats got a much higher share of their total vote from mailed ballots. The 48% figure for Allegheny County Republicans was actually the highest in the state. Republican candidates on average received only about a third of their votes on mailed ballots, compared to about two-thirds for Democratic candidates.
Let me float a theory. Trump's opposition to voting by mail has nothing to do with fraud and everything to do with who votes by mail. One thing that would refute this theory is actual cases of fraud connected to mailed ballots. But it's like the kids' joke about where pink elephants hide—in cherry trees, because no one has ever seen one there. If it's hard to vote, and you have to risk infection to do it, some people won't, and they'll be disproportionately Democrats. It helps if you close polling places where Democrats live. If you lose anyway, call "Foul!" That's the game. I'm hoping for a Biden landslide. For one thing, it's hard to say you were cheated when everyone can see you got thrashed. Also, if Trump were to lose narrowly, who knows what he'd do? I think sometimes the danger he poses is obscured by the bumbling ineptitude, the low comedy of his ridiculous schtick, the water-sipping demos and disquisitions on ramp walking, whatever it was the week before—I guess that would be the one in which he and his team of geniuses were getting punked by kids on TikTok—as the country slides.
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