With the election results certified by Congress and the inauguration less than two weeks away, the biggest winner on election day was the election process itself. The system worked as it should, for better or worse.
The popular vote and the Electoral College tallies were in alignment this week. No charges of a “stolen” election or voter fraud were made. No angry mobs stormed the Capitol. No lawsuits were filed, and no one claimed the election was rigged.
To be sure, election officials across the country did yeoman work in the fall to ensure that everything went smoothly and efficiently. They are the first responders of elections, and they deserve a round of applause.
The day after the election we knew the results except for a few scattered tallies that were too close to call. For some, it was a time of celebration. For the rest, well, the day was spent upping doses of valium, anxiety medications, and antidepressants.
The polls have been as inaccurate and misleading today as they were in the election of 1948, with the photo of a grinning President Harry Truman holding up a newspaper with the headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman!” For younger voters and non-historians, Dewey didn’t win.
Elections have always held an element of mystery and surprise. They can be cliffhangers – too close to call on election night. Or they can be landslides, like the Johnson/Goldwater election of 1964.
Could the gentle Georgian Jimmy Carter beat the seasoned politician Gerald Ford? Yes, because the nation was still deeply troubled by the pardon of Richard Nixon. Could a former actor become president? He could, and Ronald Regan did.
Polling is often driven by demographics. How will racial groups or gender issues drive the vote? Is diversity a leg up or a curse? Is educational level a factor too? How fractured are the parties themselves? Are they moving away from the center, to either the far right or left? and in that context, are their voters and party members leaving to register as independents, or Libertarians, or Green Party members?
Almost every candidate running for office in the future will have to analyze these questions if they’re looking to stay in office beyond the current terms.
I wrote before that there could be advantages to what were known in the 19th century as “front porch” campaigns, when candidates didn’t stray far, or one might say, the less they said the better. But party candidates aren’t typically afforded the luxury to heed the proverb (attributed to either Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain, or possibly neither) that it’s “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.”
So much in an election today can be a result of overexposure. We think that can’t happen, but it does. Dissatisfaction seems to be driving greater and greater numbers of voters to the polls, which, ironically, means that voter apathy, or antipathy, is generating record numbers of votes. Last year wasn’t the biggest turnout to date – 2020 was – but it was close. Independents actually outnumbered Democrats in the final vote counts.
Another interesting facet of this election, despite claims to the contrary, is that voters are responding in significant numbers to alternative voting options. Early voting, along with mail-in and absentee ballots, are becoming very popular. These generate far larger numbers of ballots cast than the traditional one-day, in-person voting. I’d like to hope that my home state of New Hampshire joins much of the country in adopting early voting.
Here in Londonderry, just over 16,000 votes were cast, and I can believe that. I stood in line with 14,000 of them on election day at the high school. I went at 11 a.m. thinking the early rush would be over. Sadly, I was wrong. It was worse than Disney during vacation week.
Similarly, our neighboring town of Derry saw 18,000-plus votes cast, and only about 2,400 were absentee ballots. Both towns used single polling stations for whatever reason. Setting up multiple stations, particularly as schools weren’t in session, might be a possible alternative to relieving the long lines and multi-hour wait.
As we see images and video clips of President Joe Biden and President-elect Trump shaking hands in the White House in front of a cheerful fire in the fireplace, whether we’re viewing this meeting in joy or despair, Americans can look forward to a transition without drama, without people in outrageous outfits assaulting the Capitol, without efforts to block the certification, and one that won’t shock us and the world.
Quite possibly, the election itself was the biggest victor.
Tom Walters is a retired music teacher and school arts administrator. He retired as fine arts director for the Methuen Public Schools, and is a past president of the MA Music Educators Association. He lives in Londonderry, and has a blog: imthinkingno.com. Reach him at tomwalters729@gmail.com.