Vote Early and Move On. Why?

Every election is different in its own way. Unlike many, the principals in the Presidential election are well known to the Americans. There will be breaking news in the days leading up to the election, but would anything of substance emerge?

There will be debates. Will the President be accused of not leveling with the Americans, on the pandemic and just about everything else? Yes. Will there be cringe-worthy verbal guffaws from his opponent and the former vice-president? Yes. Will there be questions about the pandemic, the climate, economy, health care, immigration, racial relations, China, and Russia? Yes. Will there be questions on how to fix everything? Yes. But none of the answers would leave us any more informed. The media needs the entertaining debates more than the American public most of whom already know as much about the candidates as they wish to know. Expectations are sufficiently low that both campaigns will declare victory in debates, no matter.

There will also be a more serious and even less consequential vice-presidential debate. By most measures, both VP candidates are qualified to be President and that is about all that needs to be known.

In October, there will be expected and unexpected news. There will be an NBA champion. There will be college football. There will be hurricanes. There will be reports on the changing economy, unemployment, and pandemic casualties that would mean little in the scheme of things. There will be a report from the Attorney General. There will be more racial incidents. There will be the promise of an imminent vaccine and return to normalcy. There will be election meddling, disenfranchisement, and word of post-election chaos. Maybe the President will say Black lives matter!

Mostly, there will be challenges in casting the ballot perhaps because of the usual — the weather and long lines, or because of the unusual — the pandemic and the large volumes of mail trying to reach their destinations.

The election result might surprise us. But the candidates and events of October will not. For many of us, the danger is not in voting early without knowing enough, but in our vote not counting! Vote early. Move on.

A bit about me.

It is easy for me to vote. I wish it were just as easy for all Americans.