November

November is the Presidential election.  No, I'm not going to grouse about the rotten choices we'll apparently have--again.  I won't convince supporters of either that their candidates are, well, rotten.  I see myself voting for a write-in candidate once again.  But I think I'm not going through all the rigamarole to be a write-in candidate myself.  I guess jumping through all those hoops isn't worth the thirty or so votes I received in 2016.  (That is, if people weren't lying to me about writing in my name.)

Are we going to have an election?  Of course I think we are.  But what kind of election will it be? With the corona virus still in play, as it will likely be, how will the elections be conducted?  If we are still under "social-distancing" orders (There's another term I don't like.), what will that do to election day? 

Are preparations being made, contingencies?  What about online voting?  By phone?  Perhaps the best option would be mass-mailing absentee ballots.  But what a headache!  Of course, any options other than the traditional voting day are going to be headaches.

With such an election, how long before the winner is declared "illegitimate," as if whoever won deliberately caused the corona virus to win the Presidency.  It, such a claim, will happen and will also gain credence among followers of the loser.  I'm convinced of that.

What if, say, only 23% of voters show up, the others staying home because of fears of the corona? (That recognizes that we usually get only 60%, give or take a few points either side, in Presidential elections)  Will that constitute a legitimate election?  Some might say that nonvoters made a choice to stay home, to not vote.  Is that a real choice, stay home or risk corona?  I don't know and perhaps I'm jumping the gun.  But as the Boy Scout motto reads, "Be Prepared."

Historically (There he goes with that history stuff again......), have past Presidential elections been "legitimate?"  For instance, although Union soldiers in the Civil War were given absentee ballots, I would think many of them didn't vote, either because they had other things go do (really?) or the ballots never reached them or were never returned to be counted.  Toss in the fact there were no elections in the Confederate states, at least none for the US President.  I guess one might argue the Southerners opted, through their actions, not to vote.  Still, it's interesting to note that Abraham Lincoln was never the President of the entire United States.  Hmmm......

Let's go back a bit farther in US History.  How legitimate were Presidential elections earlier, say before the Jackson campaign of 1828?  Six Presidents were elected, in effect, by white men of a certain age who had some means (wealth/property) and of a certain religion (still in some states until the 1830s).   Slaves couldn't vote; neither could Indians.  Nor could women.  Property qualifications were still in effect in many states.  So was membership in a particular religious denomination.  And those who didn't vote didn't do that because of choice.  They weren't legally permitted to vote.  The laws precluded that.  Even though legal in the strict sense of the word, were these Presidential elections legitimate relative to the ideas and ideals of the Declaration of Independence and, especially, the Constitution?

Food for thought.  While I'm at it, let me provide a little reading material, about a man who I find very inspirational.   Follow this link:  https://www.runmichigan.com/view.php?id=35030