How will you vote?

Voting is a method for a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, in order to make a collective decision or express an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a place represented by an elected official are called “constituents”, and those constituents who cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called “voters”. There are different systems for collecting votes.

In these unusual times, not far down the road of the calendar is November 3^rd. It is a Tuesday.

That is the day we, the People, are to cast our ballots for people who have convinced us he or she is the best choice to make decisions on how much we pay taxes or if our roads are repaired or if the water is safe to drink or if we are attacked by ‘invisible’ enemies, we will be protected.

Most of these people are unfamiliar unless they have a good public relations team and a bundle of money to waste.

On Voting Day we walk to the poll and disclaim ourselves as legal law abiding wholesome Americans participating in our duty. The same as we fill out our application for selective service (but the gals don’t get to play).

This year may be different.

My history has been to walk to the polling station, show my registration card to which I a verified and handed a piece of paper. I then walk to an empty booth that was curtained but now just a cardboard box around an iPad and make my selection (just like online to choose a burger). Then I walk over to another station and a kind person gives me a sticker that says “I Voted”, a proud badge of participation in the electoral process to show to all.

This year of 2020 with the pandemic and all, will I walk the three blocks to the elementary school I used so many years ago and walk pass the masked promoters with pamphlets and junk mail I’ve already seen then stand at a appropriate social distance from other neighbors until I can make my mark and get a purple finger?

Will voting be a mail-in? Seems many important papers come through the mail like driver licenses, utility bills and social security checks, so why not ballots? Seems to work for the military overseas and absentee or early voting ballots for those who cannot stand in line. The problem is the Post Office might run out of money in September. Will FedEx pick up the votes? Logistics.

Will voting be online? People order everything from pillowcases to lawnmowers to dinner, so why not order up a president? Tinder, Grindr, eHarmony and lots of others allow you to swipe left or right at what you see in the profile as an almost automatic reaction. Who knows that person running for the school board? Who knows the three people running for the city council position in your district if you’ve never heard of them? Speed election.

Maybe it will be drive-by beer pong or corn hole? Miss the mark or the hanging chads; the electoral congress will make the final count.

All these options and possibilities and variations are being discussed and evaluated by state, counties and cities writing reports, making charts, counting numbers as time marches on.

No one has suggested that a second (or third) wave of this virus will appear in the fall pressing more restricted movement eliminating the cue at the polls.

What if the voting site online is hacked? What of those voters who can’t log in? How long are you willing to wait? How does the voter verify their identity?

Worse case scenario is November 4^th, 2020 will come and there will be NO VOTES.

Will the voting process be delayed, like sports and churches, to another date when things are safer? Will the current president continue until a new election date can be settled upon? Will the government just shut down?

In a few months we will found out.