The Polls Are Open
The 2024 United States presidential election is officially underway.
With last week's start of in-person voting in Virginia and the open window to hand in absentee ballots in South Dakota and Minnesota, voters in 3 states have begun casting ballots well ahead of the November 5th general election date.
The reasons to vote early are as varied as our electorate itself. Some voters want to do it to get it out of the way. Others may have travel plans and want to vote ahead of time. Others still have work obligations that make casting a ballot on November 5th impossible. There are voters who simply want to avoid the hassle and inconvenience of long lines on Election Day. Certain voters may be overly cautious and want to vote early to ensure their ballot is counted using online verification provided by their local elections office. Health can play a role as well as those who are sick, disabled, immunocompromised, have mobility issues, or who are caretakers of others would want to vote through an absentee ballot rather than in-person. Whether it's one of these reasons, multiple reasons, or something else altogether, voters in this country are given the right to vote in a way that is most comfortable and convenient for them.
And it drives Republicans nuts.
Because Republicans do not want everybody to vote. They just want their people to vote. And their people are the ones who can afford to take time off on a single Tuesday in November to go in person to their polling location to cast a vote. The party founded on the idea of personal responsibility refuses to acknowledge that not every single person can make time on a random Tuesday in November to go down to a crowded polling location, wait in line for hours, and then cast a vote before going back to their place of employment or their home. The fact that voting takes longer in poorer neighborhoods is no accident; it is an intentional strategy by Republicans to make voting as difficult as possible for those groups that tend to vote Democrat. Republicans know that if we were a true democracy where each and every eligible voter casts a vote, they would never again win a national election. Their voters are a shrinking demographic and the only way to stay competitive is to make voting for the rest of us as difficult as possible.
That is why this past week's news out of Nebraska, Georgia, and even Oklahoma should not surprise us. Republicans are desperate and their desperation is out in the open for everyone to see. When Lindsey Graham is interfering (again) in how a state like Nebraska awards a single electoral vote, you know that Republicans are up against the ropes. When the pro-Trump election board in Georgia votes to hand count ballots, we know that is coming from a position of desperation rather than strength. When the Republican governor of Oklahoma announces the purging of 453,000 voters, that shows that even red states are more and more concerned about what happens if every eligible voter actually casts a vote. Decertifying, delaying, and denying a citizen's right to vote is something that only happens when your party is out of ideas and the only way for you to win an election is to subtract voters rather than win them over to your side.
While these trends are certainly troubling, they are not fatal. Democrats have legal stalwarts like Marc Elias on our side and an army of lawyers dedicated to fighting off Republican efforts. It is also critical that we have Democratic governors in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and North Carolina who will ensure that their ballots are counted in a fair and timely manner. In 2020, Donald Trump tried to falsely claim victory as ballots were still being counted because he knew that the vote in states like Pennsylvania would come in later from the larger, more democratic cities. However, having someone like Governor Josh Shapiro at the helm was critical as Shapiro easily countered Trump's lie and insisted that all legal ballots would be counted. Having him in Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Tony Evers in Wisconsin, Katie Hobbs in Arizona, and Roy Cooper in North Carolina will make all the difference as Trump will likely once again try to subvert democracy and claim victory without having all the votes counted once again on this upcoming November 5th. Having this blue firewall in place is critical to stopping him in his tracks.
We need to stay vigilant these final six weeks. But we know that momentum is on our side. If the early voting in Virginia is any indication, Democrats are fired up and ready to go. In 2020, there were over 101 million votes cast early out of a total of over 158 million. While the pandemic played a huge role in how people voted, we shouldn't be surprised if we have well over half of all votes in before Election Day. The more people can vote ahead of time, the less likely we have to worry about Republican shenanigans on and likely after November 5th. But even with their attempts at subverting democracy, Republicans know we have them beat. We have Marc Elias and his team. We have the blue firewall of Democratic governors. And we have a fed-up electorate who is sick of Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the entire Republican Party who continue to try and undermine our democracy by denying legal citizens the right to vote.
Their comeuppance has officially begun.
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