Why I will vote in person, coronavirus be damned

By Tom Krattenmaker
USA Today, September 6, 2020

My friend John Nelson is horrified by what President Trump has done to the country. He tells me, “I’ll crawl through broken glass to vote if I have to.”

Right there with you, Johnny — especially after the Republican convention. To make sure my vote counts, I will vote in person at my neighborhood polling place on Election Day, coronavirus or not. 

Not to slight voting by mail, which for many health-compromised Americans is the only option as the virus continues to menace. We the public must insist that all ballots are counted, whether mailed or cast in person — even if doing so takes a few days (or longer) and deprives us of the instant gratification of a declared winner on election night.

Don’t let Trump appear to be ahead

To allow space and time for that, Trump must be denied the advantage of appearing to be ahead as midnight nears on Nov. 3. As Jamelle Bouie and other election analysts have argued, a first-day edge will put Trump in a stronger position to declare victory and clamp down on further counting, creating the election debacle of our nightmares.

If Pennsylvania is any indication, this specter is real. A Franklin and Marshall poll finds a huge divergence in intended voting modes in that state, with fewer than half of Democrats planning to vote in person and a whopping 84% of Republicans intending to show up at their polling place. 

As many protectors of democracy as possible must mask up and show up at the polls on Election Day. We must not to be deterred by lines, or by the “sheriffs” and other poll-watchers Trump threatens to deploy (because deterring us is the main reason for this legally fanciful bluster). We must not, as Barack Obama puts it, let them take our power away.

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STATE BY STATE: When mailed-ballot processing and counting can begin

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To state the obvious, people should vote by mail if they have the virus. You’ll be making it safer for those who are buying time for your mailed ballot to count. And you don’t deserve anyone’s scorn if you cannot vote in person because of challenging logistics, like childcare, unyielding works schedules or the like.

But, please, if you’re able to exert extra effort to get someone to watch your kid or persuade your boss to let you arrive late or leave early, exert it. You have a role to play in history.

Tory Burch:Don’t take anything for granted. Voting now is as important as it was 100 years ago

It’s only politics, some will say. Do you really want to risk your health and mess up your day for the sake of one tiny drop of a vote in an ocean of ballots?

Hell yes. And if the reason weren’t already clear, it’s case closed after the Trump convention.

Trump’s America

His vision, and the vision of a Trump-owned Republican party, have nothing remotely useful to offer to a future that’s arriving like a bullet train whether the GOP acknowledges it or not.

While Trump and his sycophants used the convention to spin tall tales about his wondrous “leadership,” storms of two varieties ravaged the country, both made more likely and more ferocious by climate change: a powerful hurricane on the Gulf Coast and historically destructive wildfires in California. Meanwhile, protests churned over yet another police shooting of a Black man — the latest in a series of violent acts made more likely by a “climate” of racism that America is beginning to seriously confront.

Trump’s refusal to face the climate crisis, let alone do anything about it, is itself disqualifying. As is the convention’s baleful engagement with the racism crisis. In response to the pain of Black Americans, the convention furnished Trump’s pugnacious invocations of “law and order” and Rudy Giuliani’s taunt that “all lives matter.” These can only be taken as knees on the neck of an African American community pleading for acknowledgement that their Black lives matter when so much evidence suggests otherwise.

Add in the president’s strenuous attempts to undermine November’s vote even before it happens, and you have a crisis in government — one that would probably worsen in a second Trump term.

“I fear that we are witnessing the end of American democracy,” says Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene. But it is not too late to prevent the worst from happening.

We must vote — by any means necessary. If you cannot brave your polling place, take heart in knowing there is still great value in voting by mail. This is true whether you’re in a swing state, where your vote counts extra, or whether you live in a state where a Trump victory or defeat is a foregone conclusion.

Although the popular vote does not determine the president, it’s important to “run up the score” in that tally to make a statement of public will. For Democrats — and for the sake of a healthier future for the Republican Party — this election result has to take on the appearance of a tsunami, a roaring repudiation of Trump misrule and abuses and the dysfunctional political culture that paved the way.

But there’s undeniable strategic value in our showing up in person, whether at our polling places or in the mass protests that might be necessary in the days and weeks that follow — even during a pandemic made worse by the administration’s maladroit response. Some risks are worth taking.

So if you can vote in person, do vote in person. I certainly will, even if I have to go on hands and knees through that broken glass that my friend John vows to brave.

A member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors, Tom Krattenmaker writes on religion and values in public life. His most recent book is Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower. Follow him on Twitter at @tkrattenmaker