Thoughts on the election

It is now 6 days post election day, and the votes have finally been counted, and the right candidate has been deemed the winner.  It was so powerful watching Kamala Harris' speech.  Here are a few snippets of her inspiring speech:

You chose hope, unity, decency, science, and, yes, truth.

Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.

And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourself in a way that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before.

And Joe Biden spoke the words you expect from a president about uniting the nation, healing the racism and the racial divide that has become the norm in our country.

It is no surprise that the current president has not conceded, and is demanding a recount only  in the certain states where he thought he would win.  How could people have voted for someone who clearly only cares about winning because he hates losing so much?  

I am shocked by how many people voted for the incumbent.  It has been interesting being here in the US while all the votes were being counted; I have never watched so much MSNBC.  My new favorite news personality is Steve Kornacki, who was running the "big board" showing the states and if they were red, blue or undecided.  He was reporting as the votes came in from each undecided state.  I feel like he never slept most of the 4 and a half days before the longest election day in history came to an end.

I also enjoyed admiring the backgrounds of all the reporters on TV.  It has been so fascinating to see how different all of their rooms are and wonder if there is a new job out there for someone to be Zoom Background designer. 

 

This map is a very interesting representation of where the votes were cast.  When you look at the big map, showing all the states and counties in one color or another, it is so red.  But many of those counties are very rural, so not very populated.  Drew was assuming that Alaska had a lot of electoral votes because it is so big, but I told him it is based on population, not land mass.

Because of the coronavirus, there were so many different ways to vote this year: mail-in ballot, absentee ballot, early in-person and on the day in-person.  And each state has a different way of voting, tabulating and reporting.  Several of the states did not allow for any of the ballots received before election day to be counted until 7 AM on election day.  Which is why the vote count took so long in Pennsylvania.  There was a 75% increase in early ballots because of the coronavirus, most of them Democrats as Joe Biden encouraged people to vote via mail, while Donald Trump told his supporters not to use the mail because it was easier to rig the election that way.

I know that the kids will remember this election because it was all over the place for so many days, and they watched Kamala Harris and Joe Biden speak to America about hope and equality.  My hope is that Trump's supporters stop listening to Trump and believe that the election was rigged, that they take a page from Biden's book and try to come together again.  Our country needs to heal from all the negativity and negative -isms that have infiltrated our country for the last 4 years.