The 2020 Overtime

Well the 2020 voting stops in two hours --- 4 days and 19 hours of overtime. And though the voting stops the counting will go on till 4 million or so of run-off votes have been awarded as We the People of Georgia have intended. As a volunteer for the Democratic Voter Protection Team for Floyd County I will join Republican volunteers to monitor the paid staff of the Floyd County Elections office as they begin the election day tabulation of ballots. It will likely be a long night and a few long days for Elections staff and the Republican and Democratic monitors.  

Let me state this as firmly as I can: 

If you use reasonable care in marking your absentee ballot, or in touching the screen and checking the printout of your electronic ballot, your vote will be counted as you intended. 

I am very impressed with the security and accuracy safeguards built into our system; it is a vast improvement over the system it replaces. Those who claim there were major flaws in the system during the November election or this one are either ignorant of it, gullibly accepting information from untrustworthy sources, or dishonest. Period. 

Now, that does not mean that there are not external forces that work to unfairly influence voters or suppress voting. Those are ongoing issues that must be addressed: Gerrymandering, foreign interference through social media to influence votes, gross lies from some political leaders, voters because of slight signature differences, limiting hours or locations for voting in some neighborhoods and not in others, etc. BUT the voting system itself is an excellent one. 

I have raised my hand multiple times now to swear to fairly and appropriately monitor or count or adjudicate ballots. I have watched the process, along with Republican monitors, for hour after hour during all sorts of preparation, scanning, adjudication, counts, audits, and recounts. Every one involved has seemed dedicated to doing a good job. We had a few technical issues which were handled correcly and well, and, unfortunately one truly bone-headed mistake, but NEVER a purposeful mistake and every mistake was reported and corrected quickly. 

I do not know whether my candidates (Warnock and Ossoff) or the Sedition Caucus (Loeffler and Perdue) will win tonight. 

I will vomit if the liars win, but I will know that despite their loathsome "socialist" mudslinging and their fawning approval of Donald Trump's efforts to overthrow our republic, the people of Georgia will have voted for them. 

Likewise if, as I hope hope hope hope, the good guys win, I will celebrate the FACT that Georgia voted for the good guys. 

Our politics are broken, but our voting system is reliable.