Jack of Harts

I remember the year 2000 like it was yesterday. We’d just had our last Party Like It’s 1999, and then we rolled into a Presidential Election year. Then we had the election. Then Florida was called before the polls closed in Florida. Then the whole race was called before the polls closed in most of the United States.

And then we began to hear about vote counting irregularities in three Florida counties. Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Broward Counties. That set off a weeks-long recount of just over twenty thousand ballots that dominated the nation and came to a head when a large group of protestors arrived to protest the counting of ballots in secret, without witnesses. The words dimpled chad and hanging chad still resonate in our culture to this day.

In the end, the news media changed how they forecasted States, including strict requirements that they not forecast results before the polls closed in a State. Voting machines across the country changed in hopes of keeping the chads from confusing people.

And Florida completed overhauled the election laws of the State to keep something like this from ever happening again. One of those new laws is that all precincts must report the total number of votes cast, including provisional and absentee ballots, within 30 minutes of the polls closing. The main idea is so the State knows how many ballots are floating around out there and still waiting to be tabulated. If there is a difference of 60,000 votes between two candidates and there are 20,000 absentee or provisional ballots that have been received but not processed yet, the State can be pretty certain that they know who won.

Eighteen years later, we are in Florida again, with a projected win of 57,000 votes on Election Night for the outgoing governor to be the next Senator. And now we’re looking at Palm Beach and Broward Counties, the only two counties in Florida not abiding by the Florida elections laws to report how many ballots they have received. Where they are counting nearly ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND ballots not reported as even EXISTING on election night. Where they refused to allow witnesses to the counting of these unknown ballots. And where Broward is refusing to even follow a court order to report the total number of ballots they’ve received.

And for even more fun, in Broward County, the lady in charge of tabulating the votes has been found guilty this year of destroying ballots that were subject to a lawsuit accusing her of election tampering in 2016. They were the proof of how the election was handled, required by election law to be held for nearly two years. The defeated politician wanted to see them, which is allowable under Florida law. He filed a lawsuit three months later after receiving no access to the ballots. She signed a certification three months after the case was filed that no court cases involved those ballots and had them destroyed.

And for one more bit of fun, the Democrats brought in a big shot lawyer to help them win the Florida race. His name is Marc Elias, and he has a history of helping Democrats recount their way to victory after losing on Election Night. He represented Al Franken in 2008 in my home State of Minnesota. Al Franken lost on Election Night, but it was pretty tight. The recount lasted for months and featured such heartwarming stories as ballot boxes that had not been reported on Election Night being counted. We all know Al Franken ended up being selected as the Senator of Minnesota and voted for fun little bills like Obamacare.

You can say that I’ve seen this song and dance before.

Florida. Florida. Florida.

Here We Go Again.

Young Kim is one of the people you probably haven’t seen much of on the news. She was born in South Korea and her family immigrated to the American territories when she was a teenager. She went to college in California, worked in the banking and manufacturing fields, and even started her own clothing company. She has starred in her own TV and radio shows that talk about Korean American affairs, and has been part of the California Assembly for the last four years.

She was just elected to represent California’s 39th congressional district in the Federal House of Representatives. That makes her the first Korean immigrant to Represent California. Some people tack woman on to that when describing her, so that may be a required addition to the word salad. Gotta love checking boxes for politics.

Now why is she interesting? Well, she is a fiscal conservative according to what I’ve read, though has many socially moderate views as well. She supports DACA but not Obamacare, lower property taxes but not sanctuary cities, and supports forgiving student loans for those suffering from financial setbacks. In short, she looks like someone who could reach across the aisle and work with her fellow Representatives if they are in a working mood.

Also, it doesn’t hurt one bit that she is a righteous immigrant. She was born in an allied nation and her family came here looking for a better life. She grew up, she worked hard, and she won election to become a Representative of her new home State in the United States Congress. This is the story of America in one person, the hopes and dreams that all of us have for everybody who wants to come here.

It doesn’t matter if you were born here to a great family of wealth or came in on a boat with the clothes on your back. You can educate yourself here, you can start a business here, and you can represent your people in our State and Federal legislatures. Heck, you can even become Governor. Or First Lady. No President though. That requires being born here in America, because our founders didn’t want someone subject to a foreign jurisdiction to run for that office, don’t you know. Short of that though, everything is wide open here.

This is America. The land of opportunity. This is what we celebrate.

It’s Election Day in America. Yes, more people than ever before have gone the early or absentee voting route, but the majority of Americans will go into the polling station today and place their vote for the City, County, State, and Federal positions that will represent them for the next two, four, or six years. I want every American who goes in to vote today to ask themselves something. Are you better off today than you were two years ago? Four? Six? Eight? Then go in and vote based on that.

I would also ask you to demand a paper ballot if you are in one of the States that still uses purely electronic machines. I work with computers every day, and I can tell you that there is no such thing as a secure one. If you are afraid of the Russians hacking the election, this is precisely what you should be worried about. It could be the Russians based on Democrat charges, it could be the Democrats, Republicans, Chinese, North Koreans, or some hacker who just wants to have some fun and sow some chaos. The fact is that hacking these machines is not difficult for those who know what they are doing. You need to have a paper trail if you wish someone to be able to recount your vote at need.

With that said, go and vote. If there are armed men at the polling station trying to scare you away, call the police. If someone slashes your tires or torches your vehicle because you have political stickers on it, call someone to pick you up. Just make certain you go in, vote, and make your voice heard.