Practicalmadness

It’s Election Day, not even noon, and I’ve heard a first-hand account of some good old fearmongering at the polls. At my friend James’s polling place there was a longish wait to cast a ballot, and a rumor spread through the line that the delay was caused by police checking IDs at the front of the line. It turned out to be just overworked election judges, but there are a surprising lot of voters in this country who would hear “police checking IDs” and bolt.

There are certain people, and in the spirit of us all coming together to perpetuate our flawed, beautiful democratic system today I won’t point a finger at any campaign in particular, who have an interest in seeing to it that certain other people don’t vote. Over the past week the focus of the presidential campaigns has shifted from selling us on voting for their candidates, to selling us on voting or not voting at all.

Regular readers of this site know my political beliefs lean towards strategically supporting John Kerry, so I won’t try to hide that today I’m rooting for a Kerry victory (or more specifically, a Bush defeat.) There are encouraging signs for us. Despite all the efforts to prevent Americans from voting, people are committed to being heard: a record turnout is expected this Election Day, and high turnout almost always favors the Democratic candidate.

And the latest data on the Electoral Vote Predictor website, which has been extrapolating the state-by-state tracking polls into a prediction of how many electoral votes each candidate will get, shows John Kerry winning with 296 EVs (270 are needed to win). In other words, Kerry could lose Ohio or Florida (but not both) and still become president. Without a lawsuit.

But we’re still a ways away from a finished campaign season here. Almost everyone I know is convinced that this election will drag on for months as both sides contest the other’s claim to victory. I’m still hopeful that we will know the winner tonight, and that it won’t be Bush. I’m prepared to be way wrong, but there’s no way to know that until much later in the evening.

So we’ll all watch and wait. My vote is in, and I urge anyone reading this in the U.S. who hasn’t yet made it to the polls to please get off your ass and vote. Like, as soon as you can. Like now. Can you vote now? Why haven’t you voted? Are you voting now? How about now? Vote, you bastards!

And since I may not have another opportunity to say it: I am David Nemesis and I approved this message.