Loss And Hope


I hope everyone reading this, who hasn't voted early, is planning to do so today.
Susan
 and I voted. We filled out our ballots a few weeks back, though due to how things were going health-wise, we didn't get it done until past the point where the experts recommended mailing it. I made a point of driving both ballots to the nearest drop box -- in our case, about a 40 minute drive, each way -- while she was still hanging on.
Her ballot envelope is the last thing she was able to legibly sign. When she later consented to care by hospice, she only managed to make some confused squiggles on the page.
It's been just over a day since she left us. If she's able to witness the election's outcome, it will only be because she's managed to snag a window seat in Heaven, and a telescope. Whatever happened, I really wanted to be able to discuss it with her.
She cared about the state of this country, every bit as much as I did. When Donald Trump was running in the 2016 GOP primary race, she quickly identified him as a lying sociopath, a man who cares only about himself, who cons and gaslights, blusters and threatens, to trick people into getting his way. She ought to know. Like Melania, she once married a man like that. (Unlike Melania, she later traded up. If I do say so myself.)
Like her ex, Trump is a charmer. The many people he's conned will not abandon him, if nothing he's done so far has woken them up to the reality of what he's been doing. Relief will come only through masses of caring, compassionate people voting who previously haven't done it. It's encouraging to see that early voting has been popular this year. Keep up the momentum.
This election is likely to be more hotly contested than most. The GOP will try to delegitimize hundreds of thousands of perfectly valid ballots, just because they were mailed in... and because they know that many GOP supporters have bought into Trump's insistence that Covid-19 is no threat, so they may as well vote in person. Mail-in ballots are therefore more likely to contain votes for Biden. When Trump and his toadies insist that there's widespread mail-in voting fraud, they're doing what Trump does constantly: lie, freely and outrageously, knowing that some portion of the audience will listen anyway.
When the GOP, predictably, tries to either declare victory on Election Day or soon after, based on the poll numbers for in-person voting, that'll be yet another dodge. The rules say it's on the voter to cast their vote by the deadline. The state government is not similarly required to finish counting all those ballots in a mere few days. They're going to need more time this year, and by rights the voters deserve the time needed to allow their votes to be counted. The GOP will try to stop that. We must stand up to them. Be patient, and wait for the states to finish their counts. Vote suppression is anti-democratic; that way lies corruption.

Location: Waikoloa Village, HI, USA

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