Woke? Barton Gellman’s “The Election That Could Break America” in The Atlantic on Wednesday was a quadruple latte of woke. Gellman sketched out how the acting president and party allies are gaming out how to disappear any votes not counted on Election Day as “inaccurate, fraudulent.”
Forget what state laws say. Gellman quotes an unnamed Trump legal adviser and names Pennsylvania Republican Party’s chair saying that tossing the popular vote and having the GOP-led legislature name electors is an option under consideration. (See Gellman for how that works.) “To a modern democratic sensibility,” Gellman writes, “discarding the popular vote for partisan gain looks uncomfortably like a coup, whatever license may be found for it in law.”
So here we are. With a chief executive refusing to commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses, telling reporters how it might be peaceful, saying, “get rid of the ballots and … there won’t be a transfer,” and boasting to rallies that police injuring and assaulting journalists is “the most beautiful thing.”
A coup? Yes, a man like that would consider a coup. Now what?
When the Transition Integrity Project ran its series of post-election war games in June, the only scenario that did not result in chaos was a big Joe Biden win. Make. That. Happen. And by Election Day.
The six contested states primarily at issue are Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All allow in-person early voting. See your state Board for requirements, dates and times.
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin do not allow processing of absentee ballots before Election Day. If you can vote in person in those states, please do so. Your absentee ballot there will be challenged. Full stop.
If you expect to vote absentee in Arizona, Florida or North Carolina, do so as early as possible. Drop off your ballot in person at your local Board office if at all possible. If you mail it less than two weeks prior to Election Day it may not arrive in time or may not be processed before the end of the day Nov. 3. You don’t want that.
Now then, about maximizing turnout, I missed this positive news from the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics a few days ago. Greg Sargent writes:
The poll finds that among likely voters in that 18-to-29 demographic, Biden is leading President Trump by 60 percent to 27 percent among likely voters. That’s significantly better than the 49 percent that Hillary Clinton got in this poll in 2016.
But that’s not all. The poll also finds that an astonishing 63 percent of respondents say they will “definitely be voting,” compared to 47 percent in the 2016 version of this poll.
That matches 2008 levels. The 2008 version of this poll found that among a somewhat smaller segment of young voters, approximately the same percentage said they’d definitely be voting.
While this comparison between the two subsets isn’t perfect, it nonetheless indicates that it’s reasonable to posit that 18- to 29-year-olds might post 2008-level turnout this time, according to Chase Harrison, the acting director of the Institute of Politics poll.
Great. Now get voters aged 30-45 to join them.
I’ve repeatedly used this chart of 2018 Early Voting turnout in North Carolina (below) to illustrate that seniors only run this country because they out-vote people 45 and under, not because they represent a plurality of the eligible voter population. The shape of these curves is typical nationwide. Expect to see it updated soon with full results and results from 2016 as well. North Carolina’s data transparency makes it possible (although a bit of a data-crunching headache).
Encourage everyone you know to vote, but especially those 45-ish and under who have blown it off before. Those people who took to the streets in Black Lives Matter protests all summer? Those who oppose the police-state tactics of the Trump administration? Ask them to vote.
People 45 and under and sick of how things are run by Boomers? People inspired by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taking on crusty establishment Democrats? Ask them to vote.
Even those radically unaffiliated activists you know? The ones unwilling to soil themselves with politics because they think voting doesn’t matter? Ask them to vote. Let them know if they do not vote this time, there may be no next time.
Ask them to reach out and take the power right in front of them. It is already theirs.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.