Why does it seem to take so long before the results of an election is announced? Why is counting votes taking so long? Those are two very good questions like many in this nation including myself are trying to figure out. I can tell you that there is probably not one definite answer. More early voting? More mail in voting? More military voting? The closeness of the elections? I have always wondered why every State is not working under the same set of rules when it comes to national elections. The time when votes can be counted is different in some states. Not being able to start counting absentee or mail in votes until after the polls close. The more early voters there are and the more mail in ballots there are the longer it is going to take for the results to come out because of the verification process. In Florida they are allowed to count the mail in ballots when they are received and that is one of the reasons for the speed of Florida’s results. I have a problem with that because the results of the early voting could be leaked. I would rather not have the tallying of the early voting and the mail-in voting to not start at least until Election Day. Taking our time and getting it right should be our top priority. I would rather be slow and fair than be fast and not fair. Don’t get it fast, get it right!

The people that complain about all the different options we have to vote are the people that want to go back to just voting in person. Why? I think that it is because you can suppress the voting easier. Let’s face it, if a person is going to have to wait eight hours in line without anyone being able to give them water they are being discouraged from voting. The number of polling places can be increased or decreased on how you want the participation to be. High participation you have a lot of polling places. Low participation you have fewer polling places. Voter suppression is a real thing. It has always been a real thing. Lyndon Johnson ruined his political career by reserving the right to vote for Blacks in the South. Racism has deep roots in our political process and no one will be able to convince me that it still isn’t there.

This is the 21^st century. Remarkable things are being done with technology. We can send secure signals around the planet. We can communicate with almost anyone in the world in real time. We can even see images that are being sent from Mars. That technology isn’t even new. I remember watching the moon landing live and that was over 50 years ago. With all this technology why are we still asking people to stand in line to vote? That is just ridiculous. Technology can be made very secure so people would never have to leave their home. I know that people will say that our system will be hacked. If hacking into a system is so easy then why hasn’t someone hacked into the IRS and leaked Donald Trump’s tax returns? If hacking into systems is so easy why haven’t our enemies hacked into our National Security and had us launch our own missiles at ourselves or our allies? I worked a little of IT Security in my lifetime and know that security can be establish down to the individual file level on who can view what. We have to stop believing what we see from Hollywood is real life.

The people who want to go back to everyone voting in person are the same people that think it is ok to have some people wait in line to vote for eight hours. Are they really interested on voter integrity or are they more interested in vote suppression? Racism has not gone away in America. When it comes to voting I think that it is getting worse. As technology gets better and better we should be making it easier to vote. Maybe we should have weekend voting with the voting both on Saturday and Sunday. Maybe email voting. We are a very diverse country and our methods to vote should maybe be diverse too. The key is getting more participation not less. I think that when it comes to national elections too many Republicans like Mitch McConnell feel that less participation is good for them and that is a shame. I haven’t even mentioned gerrymandering where districts are drawn to the advantage of one party or the other. Our elections are supposed to be the will of the people. Many politicians have stated after they won an election that the people have spoken. If you really believe that then you must oppose voter suppression in every form and encourage all of our voices to be heard. Everyone must have the same ability to vote for the people voice to be heard.