As America Votes This Fall, Coughing And Sneezing Could Bar Many From Casting Their Ballot
The Oasis Reporters
November 3, 2020
As the United States of America, where voting commences at 7 am, Dallas time, about 1am Nigerian time [going into the next day] – (Nigeria is 6 hours ahead), there’s a group of voters who may be denied the vote.
The lines are very long, and if you cough while on the line, they’d ask you to leave. And voters must wear their masks.
This is sinus/allergy season in the US and with this befuddling period of a second wave of Covid-19 surge, mirth and laughter is not a great feature on faces. Moreso, as the biggest opponent to President Donald Trump’s reelection bid keeps tweeting with graphic contrasts how the president has bungled attempts to keep America safe from the virus.
Former President Barack Obama has compared the handling of the pandemic by Trump against how the Koreans and the Canadians did, given similar circumstances. The figures and percentages do somehow show that Trump hasn’t done well in that aspect.
And this Fall, a lot of people may experience the allergy in this change of weather. Besides, one can’t be on the line with excessive coughing.
Results are usually announced about 8 pm, depending on when they come in. But could linger for days because of the population of those who voted: over 100 million people have already cast their ballot, either through mail-in voting or by appearing on the queue.
According to a CNN report by Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu, they say that “There is an unusual feeling of foreboding in America”.
Meanwhile, here’s their report, courtesy of CNN International:
US politics so revolves around dueling visions of the country that tension always steeps before presidential elections. But it’s especially raw this election eve.
People on both sides of the political divide fear that the country they love will be lost if their preferred candidate does not win on Tuesday. Liberals believe another term for Donald Trump would so badly erode democratic institutions and guardrails that there would be no going back. Trump and conservative media polemicists tell his supporters that the country will be consumed in flames and taken over by radical socialist thugs if he loses to Joe Biden.
The President bears much of the blame for the national angst. He has been claiming for months that the election will be rigged, predicted it would go to the Supreme Court, refused to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power, and encouraged supporters to surveil polling places. On Friday, trucks and cars driven by Trump supporters surrounded a Biden campaign bus on a highway in Texas, prompting an FBI investigation and spurring fears of post-election violence.
[The Biden tour bus and Trump supporters in Texas on Friday.]
These tactics have no place in Texas, my home state, and no place in America.
Please vote. Please volunteer this weekend. The future of our democracy is at stake. pic.twitter.com/G0O4yg2vnJ— Dr. Eric Cervini (@ericcervini) October 31, 2020
More Democrats tend to vote by mail, and reports of marooned postal ballots will revive suspicions that the pro-Trump head of the US Postal Service is trying to obstruct their delivery. it could be days before the final count emerges in key battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, but many election observers expect the President to declare victory on Tuesday night if he is ahead in swing states — even before all the votes have been counted. That would automatically subject the country to the pain of a disputed election. Ensuing legal challenges from both sides would further estrange the two halves of the country.
For all these reasons, whoever wins, America needs an emphatic and unequivocal verdict from citizens likely to vote in record numbers.
With more than 90 million votes already cast, the election may still hinge on whether President Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Joe Biden does the best job in driving remaining voters to the polls. On Monday, they and their running mates made their last stands in the states that could make the difference.
Trump is banking on a series of late comebacks in the battlegrounds, and plans on visiting Michigan (twice), North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. As usual, he’s making no concessions to social distancing by holding big rallies.
Biden, in keeping with his more Covid-19 compliant schedule, is stopping only in Pennsylvania and Ohio — the latter amounting to a late raid into territory that Republicans were sure they had locked up months ago.
Their veep picks will be on the trail too. Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris will spend all day in Pennsylvania, which could end up being the decisive state. The man whose job she is after, Vice President Mike Pence, will also be in the commonwealth.
And Biden is also deploying his highest wattage surrogate, former President Barack Obama, to Georgia and Florida where a heavy turnout among African American voters could help the Democratic nominee move into his ex-boss’s old digs.
Credits:
CNN
Friends of The Oasis Reporters in the US.
