Election Day is Tuesday, November 3rd!
If your state provides for early and/or mail-in voting and you have not yet voted, consider doing so sooner rather than later. If you don’t like the way things are in our country and, to some extent, in the world, this is your chance to begin fixing it.
I know. You’re thinking things like:
- What difference does it make?
Article I of the Constitution of the United States of America defines the structure and responsibilities of the group of elected officials charged with the decisions and laws of the country … Congress.[1]
Every two years:
- All 435 seats in the House of Representatives could change depending on the choices of the voters in each district.
- 33 or 34 seats in the Senate (33 regular plus 2 special elections for a total of 35 this year) could change depending on the choices of the voters in each district.
- In addition to these Congressional races, there are 39 State Governor’s elections with 18 incumbent Governors running for reelection,
- All 435 seats in the House of Representatives could change depending on the choices of the voters in each district.
- Aren’t all politicians the same?
Attempting to equate themselves with their party’s policies and leadership, incumbent Representatives, Senators, and their surrogates are fond of saying, “Ask yourself. Am I better off than I was four years ago?” For Midterm elections, it’s two years. So, ask yourself, “Am I better off in 2026 than I was in 2024?” … and remember that the Republican Party has had control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency in 2025 and 2026. - The polls and the pundits say my side is going to win. Why should I inconvenience myself?
In 2020, Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks won the Iowa 2nd Congressional District by only 6 votes out of nearly 400,000 ballots cast. If 7 of her voters had not voted, she would have lost.
In the 2008 Minnesota Senate Election, Democrat Al Franken won by only 312 votes out of over 2.9 million cast.
Ultimately, polls are statistical estimates and pundits provide educated guesses. Your vote and everyone else’s votes count. - The system is rigged. The super-rich decide who wins. Why bother?
The super-rich … and whichever party is currently in power … would like us to believe they’re the ones who decide the elections, but they aren’t. Have you ever noticed how politicians talk about election fraud only when they’re losing or have lost?[2]
- Elections are run by the States; not the Federal Government. It’s very hard to rig (or buy off) 50 individual elections in order to make them produce identical results.
- Research shows that 29% of voters identify themselves as Democrats, 28% identify as Republicans, and 44% identify as Independent / Unaffiliated. That makes it hard for either party to rig an election.
- The more money a candidate has; the more ads their campaigns produce … and the more outrageous those ads become. If something seems too good or too bad to be true, it’s probably a scam.
- Elections are run by the States; not the Federal Government. It’s very hard to rig (or buy off) 50 individual elections in order to make them produce identical results.
Democracy is not a given. Democracy is not an infallible machine or algorithm. Democracy is not a noun.
Democracy is an active Verb …
… and We are the ones who must act.
One Last Thing …
Here … only days before the election … the House race seems to be favoring the Democrats and the Senate is anybody’s guess, One way or another it’s close. One thing that’s likely is that the closer a candidate is to President Trump; the more likely that candidate is to be defeated.
If the Democrats win the House, they should not focus on impeaching the President. (Who knows? He may be proud of collecting more impeachments than any other president. He does like to be “the best” at almost everything.)
The next Congress should focus on taking back their Article I power and on cleaning up the mess that the current Congress passively allowed to happen. Investigating corruption and incompetence is part of that but, not with a preconceived goal of Impeachment.
The best case scenario (however unlikely) would be a veto-proof anti-Trump majority … 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate … regardless of party affiliation. That Congress could neuter[3] Donald Trump … allowing the passage of laws that codify long held norms. The Trump Administration seems to believe honor, compassion, and decency are for everybody except themselves and their allies. Such laws will help to prevent our country from those who believe they deserve absolute power and adoration and will move us even closer to the Founder’s vision than we have ever been.
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Notes
[1]
The Founders of the United States of America believed that decisions about how a government is run should come from everybody subject to that government … We the People … rather than from a Monarch, an Autocrat, the Super Rich, or a Dictator. In 2026, there are approximately 204.6 million people in the United States who are eligible to vote. Obviously, we can’t all vote on every issue. Since pure democracy cannot work for very large groups, the Founders designed a system of representative democracy. Subdivisions of the population (sates and districts within states) would elect individuals who would represent them. In the United States, we call those representatives Congress. Congress is divided into two chambers … the House of Representatives elected at the district level and the Senate elected at the State level.
[2]
President Trump seems to be the exception. If he has ever lost at anything, everything in that category is rigged. That includes elections. He lost in 2020, so all elections are rigged in some way … even the ones he won. He wants us to believe that:
- He won in 2020. (He didn’t.)
- He won the popular vote as well as the Electoral College vote in 2016. (He didn’t.)
- He won by both the popular and electoral votes in 2024 by an overwhelming majorities. (He didn’t.)
[3]
Neuter him figuratively not literally, of course. It’s too late for the latter. That damage was done long ago.
