An Election Day Note to Readers: Keep Calm and Carry On
Anxiety is a terrible substitute for serenity
First up, I’d like to express my gratitude to all the people who read, shared, and commented on my 2022 Voter Guide. This newsletter isn’t a monetized entity, so feedback is my reward (or punishment).
(If you haven’t voted, there’s a list of helpful sites at the end of this post.)
I will hold off any comprehensive analysis of election results until Thursday. There have been numerous attempts to game the results, ranging from a plethora of partisan polling to lawsuits aiming to limit the number of ballots cast.
As of Tuesday morning, 44 million Americans have already cast their ballot. Since states have the power under the constitution to set the rules for tabulating votes, there will be a considerable lag in reporting results. Key battleground states like Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia won’t have their final counts on the books for days, and it could be longer if GOP legal beagles can find friendly courtrooms.
This lag –in California it’s the sheer number of voters and measures counties take to get it right– is fertile ground for fakers and grifters. Locally, we can look forward to the strong possibility that Carl DeMaio will cry foul and then ask for donations to fight the results.
Trump lawyer Christina Bobb is already claiming that votes counted after early Wednesday are “very suspicious.” In reality, due to large numbers of absentee and mail-in votes, and rules prohibiting early counting, we may not know election winners for days in some races.
The only thing that could possibly have a widespread effect on election day voting are the (sometimes armed, always obnoxious) gnomes trained by the right to create drama at polling places and election counting locations.
There is a last minute onslaught of dormant social media accounts springing to life to disseminate misinformation. The New York Times says it’s the handiwork of the Russians.
The fact that it doesn’t matter; there is a worldwide conflict ongoing led by nation-states encouraging autocracies. Russia represents just one flavor of an ongoing assault against democracy and what the theocrats embedded within deem to be social (control) issues.
David Neiwert at Daily Kos:
in response to this planned onslaught, most social media companies have simply shut down their oft-touted efforts to weed out election disinformation from their platforms. The Washington Post found that, in stark contrast to the 2018 and 2020 elections, neither Facebook nor Twitter have tagged posts with false or dubious information about the integrity of the election system. It found that at least 26 candidates “have posted inaccurate election claims since April, but the platforms have done virtually nothing to refute them.”
Previously, both platforms added labels to posts spreading false claims about the 2020 election, but this year, such labels “have been nonexistent.” Facebook claimed it had received feedback from users that the labels were overused, so the company decided that any labels this year would be used in a more “targeted and strategic way.” Late last year, Twitter started experimenting with newly designed misinformation labels that the company says led to decreases in replies, retweets and likes of falsehoods and an increase in people clicking through to the debunking content.
The Post found 17 candidates posting on Facebook or Twitter who claimed the 2022 election or aspects of the voting system are being rigged. It counted 40 such posts, and found that they all went unchallenged. Similarly, some 18 election denialists running for office claimed the 2020 election was fraudulent some 52 times, again without any challenge on the part of Facebook or Twitter.
Know this: Corporate America by and large is learning to love “managed democracy” in which loyalty to the government is rewarded with unbridled economic opportunities. Much of the Republican Party has given up on democracy as we’ve known in the US for a couple of centuries.
Track when your ballot is mailed, received and counted at california.ballottrax.net/voter
California won’t begin releasing results until after the polls close at 8 p.m. Pacific time.
The New York Times election results page is here. Daily Kos uses multiple sources and has a tracker broken out by type of contest. Please don’t bother with “Clearly Not News” (CNN) as they shouldn’t be considered a reliable source any more.
Locally sdvote.com will post some results shortly after polls close. These results will include mail ballots received before Election Day and vote center ballots from early voting between Oct. 29 – Nov. 7. Additional tabulation will continue for several weeks. The final certified results won’t be posted until December 8.
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Here’s Dan Pfeiffer, answering the question in the back of every political geek’s mind, namely:
Were the Polls Wrong Again?
In 2020, the polls predicted that Biden would win states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan with ease. He squeaked out very narrow victories. The polls also predicted competitive races in Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Iowa. Biden lost all of those states by surprisingly large margins. This time around, the polls predict very close contests in all of the key races. If the polls are way off again, it might be the end of polling as we know it and lead to a dramatic shift in politics and media. Campaigns would need to reevaluate their strategies, and media organizations would have to stop lighting money they don’t have on fire...
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Below are a dozen places to look for information that’s helpful in knowing who to vote for (and who not)
Tom Ultican has done some amazing research on Board of Education contests in the San Diego area.
If you prefer a more mainstream approach to your voting research, let me suggest the San Diego Union-Tribune 2022 General Election Guide
The Times of San Diego 2022 Voter Guide is a short and sweet version of the many contests you’ll see on the ballot..
Nonprofit Voice of San Diego has an Election Hub, allowing readers to explore some of their in depth coverage of local issues and candidates.
The League of Women Voters of San Diego has Voter’s Edge with all kinds of ways from videos to funding information. It’s find my ballot feature which gives up a customized view is a valuable resource.
Those of you who insist on hewing to the party line can find the County Democratic Party’s endorsements here and the County GOP endorsements here. (Friends don’t let friends vote Republican.)
The San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council Voter Guide covers a wide range of contests.
If you’d like a list of who not to vote for that advertises it’s nativism upfront, there’s always Carl DeMaio’s “Plain English” Voter Guide. You’ll have to Google this one yourselves though.
The Courage Campaign publishes a Progressive Voter Guide for San Diego, which isn’t very deep in terms of its listing of candidates and measures. But all the biggies are there.
KPBS and CalMatters have explainers for you to peruse. The local public radio station is also plugged into Voter’s Edge, the same outfit that the League of Women Voters uses.
San Diego’s Democrats for Equality has a long list of endorsements, noting candidates that are LGBTQ+, incumbents, and in a position to flip a red seat to blue.
I’m not modest at all about my 2022 Words & Deeds Voter Guide, packed with links and analysis. If it’s opinions you’re looking for, this is the right spot.
Again, Keep Calm and Carry On. Watch Netflix (or whatever) tonight.
Email me at: WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com