You have to feel for the election officials, for the TV commentators, and for those of us who want relief. No matter which channel you turn on – cable or broadcast – it is ballot results non-stop. Even when there are no results to report. There are digital boards and graphic displays and electronic gadgets of every sort, and even they are getting tired. When Steve Kornacki’s toys start playing up, then you know they’re being overused.
Even Anderson Cooper can hardly think of another thing to say – but that doesn’t stop the producers from examining each result and reiterating the status (basically unchanged) in a days-long stream of increments. This is not the first election that is stretched out over days. That’s just how it is.
Pity the sleep-deprived voting officials who have to drag their asses out frequently to report on 20 ballots – to a flurry of whirling updated numbers and percentages – and to be unable to predict when they’d actually be done and to defend the beleaguered counters and the election staff and to explain that they’ve never dealt with so many dropped-off or mailed-in votes. For gawd’s sake, we get it.
Meanwhile, you wouldn’t know that day after day we are reporting the highest number of Coronavirus infections than any country at any time. We are breaking these nasty records, just as Europe too is having surges, but there isn’t enough time to report that. Uncounted people are unemployed and hungry and on the verge of eviction. As individuals we can, of course, turn off the TV altogether – but the country is absolutely saturated with these details and it’s hard to demure.
Why can’t we have an hourly update? And go ahead and break into the other programming if there is a definitive result. This approach just raises the national blood pressure and makes us go cross-eyed with the ridiculous nature of American elections. And I know that in my lifetime I will not see the elimination of the foul Electoral “College” so that the candidate with the most votes wins; nor the fair distribution of Senate seats; nor the end of gerrymandering and voter suppression. This 24-7 minutiae just confirms what a screwed-up structure those slave-owning, land-owning, property-protecting, white-male-privilege-defending Founding Fathers bequeathed us.
Hi dear Sue, I am very glad they are counting the ballots. I do not listen or read what they are saying as long as I keep on knowing Biden is winning. I do LOVE your last sentence here. It says a lot about many many many things going on, past and present
Posted by: Sheila Parks | 07 November 2020 at 11:23