Politics VI: Thank God it’s over

There are several good things in general about the Presidential election of 2024  regardless of who won

l.  The turnout:  I can’t find a comparison with previous elections but it appears as high as anything in the past.  There will be no quibbles such as, “if just a few more turned out here and there, the results would have been different”.

2. The magnitude of the victor’s margin (nearly 5 million at last count).  So there will be no legal back and forth about ambiguous ballots, late mailings and postmarks etc. etc.  You are likely old enough to remember the battle over the hanging chads from 2000.

In 2000, the election was far from over on election day, and we watched CNN interminably while at the hospital with her mother for her final illness (which the docs kept going far too long in my opinion).   It all came down to the way the ballot was confusingly constructed, meaning that a bunch of Jews voted for a real antiSemite,  Pat Buchanan, instead of Gore.  We showed the ballot to her mother (in the ICU at the time) who, on oxygen and with IVs running, looked at it for two seconds and said that anyone who couldn’t figure it out shouldn’t be voting.

At any rate, the recount was incredibly lengthy and tedious and was dominated by chads.  Here’s a link if you’re foggy on details or if you weren’t born yet —  https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/hanging-chad-or-not-2000-presidential-election.

3.  The fact that the winner of the popular vote and the winner of the electoral collage are one and the same.

4. Lack of claims about stolen election, probably a reflection of #2

5. The lack of any significant violence or rioting, again a likely reflection of #2

6. Just the fact that it’s over, and we can all resume our lives (in my case posting about matters scientific)