Tales of the Precinct

[mallorys_camera]

What Blue Wave? 😀

Still. Twenty-three million mail-in ballots remain to be counted, many of those from urban strongholds like Atlanta and Philly, so I personally think the fat lady isn’t even doing her vocal warm-ups yet.

Of course, the moral cautionary tale of the Birthday Card That Took Two Weeks to Be Delivered injects a certain fatalism into that scenario.

###

Unlike the majority of the people I know, I am not particularly invested in the outcome of this election.

From my perspective, it seems to come down to two things: (A) The economy vs. Covid and (B) narcissism vs. (presumed) dementia. The latter characterization—of Biden, in case you couldn’t tell—strikes me as unfair: Biden stutters. I used to stutter as a child, and I can tell you that when you stutter, all sorts of ridiculous associations come pouring out of your mouth because you’re focusing so hard on not stuttering. Biden does not have dementia!

Which is not to say that Biden is not a complete corporate tool! But the margin by which he is not Worse Than Trump is sufficiently wide so that I voted for him.

However…

If Biden loses, it will be a repudiation of Cancel Culture, with which liberals in the U.S. have become so desperately entangled. The degree to which the Wokes—admittedly a Democratic fringe group, but still: a Democratic fringe group—have choked free speech, for example, is absolutely appalling. When you create a culture that shames, attacks, and calls out people for “wrongthink”—no analysis allowed! Nuance will be canceled!—you really shouldn’t be surprised when it bites you in the ass.



But let’s not talk about the election! Instead, let’s talk about how Virtuous and Pure I am to have spent 16 hours working my local election precinct yesterday.

Man, that was fucking brutal!

Sixteen hours on my feet without a break!

My FitBit says I walked eight miles! And I barely left the precinct house.

It is not an experience I am likely to repeat because it was no fun at all!

But it is an experience I am glad that I had because it was very interesting.

###

The above is what I wore—courtesy of the wonderful BB!

I was right, by the way, that it was mostly Republicans turning out on Election Day.

Everybody did wear a mask so a couple of hours into the day, I swapped the rebreather out for a more standard N95. I kept the face shield.

Unsurprisingly, Dutchess County went for Trump.

The weirdest thing was that when prospective voters have questions about the ballot, one Republican and one Democrat have to answer those questions together! So that one or the other party member doesn’t try a little subliminal persuasion, I suppose. For the day, I counted as a Dem! Which is my current registration so that I could vote in Dem primaries (which are much more interesting than Republican primaries.)

I worked out a little musical comedy number for the representative Democrat and Republican to do as they skipped up together, swinging hands, to answer Hapless Voter questions. The other poll workers thought it was funny. The other poll workers were very nice, and I gotta say, the voters were, too, even though at the height of the day, the wait to vote was something like two hours long in the bone-chilling cold.



(Click picture to see full-size!)

This particular precinct is the voting place for two separate wards, and that was also very interesting because the term “gerrymandering” kept infiltrating my thoughts:

Ward 4 is the oddly shaped and may I say very large geographical area that spills over the old farms where all the middle class housing developments are.

Ward 1 is an eensy-weensy little area smack on top of all those Section 8 housing units I enumerated for the National Counting Project. (In fact, I saw a couple of voters I had enumerated for the National Counting Project and had to restrain myself from greeting them like old friends!)

Ward 4 voters outnumbered Ward 1 voters 2.5 to 1.

It is a real shame that nothing can galvanize those Ward 1 voters to get out and vote because a Trump victory is really not in their best interests!

But nothing can.

###

Both my kids texted me last night.

Mom’s a BAD ASS! texted RTT.

You’re an inspiration! texted Ichabod. I’m REALLY proud of you.

So that was nice.