Your neighbor is not your enemy
By NewsPress Now
As election results came in Tuesday night, one thing became abundantly clear.
About half the population will believe the country is doomed following Donald Trump’s victory. A Kamala Harris victory would have prompted the same “sky-is-falling-in” reaction from the other half of the electorate. Maybe that’s the one unifying element in this otherwise bitter and polarizing presidential campaign.
This 2024 campaign speaks not just about the candidates but all of us and where we are as a society. If you’ve ever wondered why politicians air so many attack ads, it’s because we let them get away with it.
Too many of us demonize the opponent and then express shock that 80 million Americans voted for the other candidate. Taken as a whole, this can be bewildering for those who spend so much time with fellow travelers on social media. On a more localized level, it’s much harder to throw venom at a supporter of the candidate that you happened to hate.
In Buchanan County, Trump received 63% of the vote compared to 34% for Harris. This is roughly on par with results in the 2020 election and a noticeable change from 2008 when Barack Obama carried the county by 54 votes.
Think about this year’s results. Are you willing to believe that 19,642 of your friends and neighbors are racists or proto-fascists because of how they voted? Or that 10,616 people in this community want to destroy the country?
No, people with different opinions are just that. People with different opinions.
This election gave us two flawed candidates, but someone has to win and someone has to lose. If you’re unable to accept that and refuse to deal civilly with those who voted differently, it says more about you than the candidate.
The last speedy election?
Buchanan County released final election results by 9 p.m. on Tuesday, but this could be the last time things go so smoothly in a major election.
Denny Hoskins, the Republican candidate for Secretary of State, wants to mandate hand counting of all ballots in future Missouri elections. Hoskins, a state senator, won with 57% of the statewide vote.
As the state’s top elections official, Hoskins would be in a position to advocate for hand-counting of ballots, which he views as more secure than the optical scanning equipment used in Buchanan County and other parts of the state. Since the secretary of state is responsible for certifying all election equipment, he could simply withhold that approval and leave counties with no choice but to hand-count all ballots on election night.
In an election with 36,000 ballots in Buchanan County, it’s highly debatable that a bleary-eyed volunteer would have provided more accuracy than the scanning equipment that is tested and certified by federal and state officials. Election equipment also is required to be “air-gapped” with no connection to the internet.
What’s beyond dispute is if you want to find out who wins a future election, you may as well go to bed early.
If Missouri starts hand-counting ballots from start to finish, those results might be there for you in the morning, if you’re lucky.
