When will we KNOW?

Axios made this nice map of election returns in 2020. Conclusion? The AP called Pennsylvania on Saturday, thus correctly calling the election for President Joe Biden.

You may have heard a few days ago that the current chair of the Freedom Caucus, Andy Harris (MD-MAGA Idiot), agreed with an activist at a MAGA dinner that the legislature of North Carolina should decide the election NOW, instead of letting people vote, because of the damage Hurricane Helene caused to the western part of the state. He later tried to walk it back, but there’s video. Don’t worry - that cannot legally happen.

But as for video, this is the best one I saw last week, it’s fun, and we could all use a break.

Back to the main topic. We will NOT know who won on Tuesday, probably not until Saturday, but perhaps Friday. That doesn’t preclude the potential for Election Officials refusing to certify elections and going to court - the AP will go with the uncertified counts in calling races.

This year, the counts of mail-in ballots should go more quickly, mostly because there will not be Covid restrictions. That is, in 2020, counters needed to stay 6’ away from one another, and that limited the number of people who could be involved in the count, given the size of each facility. Now that the world no longer considers Covid a threat¹, more people can be processing and counting votes. In addition, counting gaps should be reduced because of the number or armed guards and police that will be protecting counting locations in the places most likely to face threats.

Luckily, no more hanging chads. All of us who are in our 40’s or older will remember this guy:

A lot of changes since 2020: to how voting is undertaken (much of the country has switched to optical scan ballots), to when states can be called (never again before the polls have closed in an individual state), to how many people now have access to mail-in ballots.

Remember, Halloween is in two days: mark your candy. If you haven’t printed your labels, here are the instructions. My husband and I labeled last night, and here’s our bowl of 3 Musketeers, Crunch, Reese’s and M&Ms.

That’s all I’ve got for today — instead of researching something to write about, I’m back out with undecided voters because I live in Pennsylvania. On Tuesday, we’ll be one week out, so I’ll have a round-up on early voting and why you should COMPLETELY ignore the polls.

1. This is NOT TRUE - Covid is still a threat. In the US, currently, about 100 people die every day from Covid, and our numbers are better than in some other countries. I plan to post on this, but not until after the election.