No doubt you’ve seen President Trump all over TV raising Chicken-Little concerns about mail-in ballots. He would have you believe they will cause enough fraud, chaos, and confusion to render November’s presidential election null and void.
Except that he betrays the fatuousness of his concerns by claiming that mail-in ballots will work just fine in states like Florida (and presumably in all other states headed by Republican governors and populated by many Trump supporters).
For the record, study after study (including Trump’s own Orwellian election integrity commission) has shown that ballot fraud is nothing more than a product of the right-wing conspiracy mill.
But I implore you to keep in mind that he suffers a raging case of clinical projection, which I diagnosed over four years ago in “Forget the Clinton Foundation. Shut Down the Trump Organization!” August 26, 2016. This disorder manifests in Trump accusing others of, among other faults, deceit, weakness, ignorance, incompetence, and even treason — all in a vain attempt to deflect from the fact that he himself is guilty of each.
It is particularly relevant when he accuses Joe Biden and the Democrats of planning to rig November’s presidential election. Because it is self-evident that he and the Republicans are the ones doing all they can to do so — from voter-suppression efforts in legislatures and courts to Russian-style disinformation campaigns all over social media.
That said, courtesy of USA.gov, here is all you need to know and do to render all of these election-rigging machinations null and void:
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Most states have early voting. This lets registered voters vote on specified dates before Election Day. You don’t need an excuse to vote early.
The date on which early voting begins may be as early as 45 days before the election, or as late as the Friday before the election. The average starting time for early voting is 22 days before the election (and some states even have early in-person voting on weekends).
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Check with your local election officials to find out when your early in-person voting begins. And plan to vote as early as possible.
For example, “In-Person Absentee Voting” begins on September 18 in my state of Virginia. Accordingly, I plan to vote before the first presidential debate, which is scheduled for September 29. Let Trump supporters wait until Election Day on November 3 to weather Covid (and possibly inclement weather) to vote (hehe…).
Of course, if yours is one of the few states with all-mail elections, request and mail in your ballot ASAP!
The point is that early in-person voting will
- spare you the frustrations, to say nothing of the anxieties, most voters face on Election Day;
- ensure your vote is counted, electronically, precluding election officials from rejecting your mail-in ballot, which they seem intent on doing this year by the millions, arbitrarily
- undermine Trump’s declared intent to use the counting of mail-in ballots to cast doubt on what he clearly fears will be his historic defeat; and
- guarantee that the winner will be declared on election night, not weeks, months, or years later (as Trump is scaremongering).
He clearly knows he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning re-election. This is why Trump wants to project fraud, chaos, and confusion into the electoral process, hoping that, by the time everything is settled, he will have served as president for life.
I know, too crazy to be true, right? Until you remember that, despite all attempts to explain the ABCs of Covid-19 to him, this shyster is still telling his supporters that it would disappear if only he could get stupid medical practitioners to “slow the testing down, please.”
Yeah. So vote early! Bank your vote!
[Note: Every Republican seems hell-bent on continuing to sacrifice their soul, to say nothing of their political integrity, at the altar of Donald Trump. Therefore, to restore the many democratic norms Republicans have enabled him to break, I urge you to vote for the Democratic candidate — not just for president but for every office down ballot too (even for the idiomatic dogcatcher).]
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