New Orleans Being a frequent traveler, I get an absentee ballot from the good election officials in Orleans Parish, and I appreciate it. My ballot came in yesterday’s mail on September 25 for the November 5th election. I’ve voted, gave them my mother’s maiden name, had a witness print and sign, and put a stamp on the envelope, and it’s in the mail.
We all talk about the election being more than five weeks away, but for many of us, it’s over now. Not the working the election part, but the personal act of voting, is out the door. We are emailing a half-million purged voters in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan this week and another half-million next week. We want everyone to vote, of course, but it’s hard to believe that for many of us, the campaign is effectively already over. We’ve made our decision, and we’re sticking with it. Meanwhile, the campaigns are still going after the persuadable folks on their list and the chronic voters they believe are their people.
Still, it was a surprise looking at the ballot yesterday. We all probably think of the contest as being so binary, Republican versus Democrat, Harris versus Trump, but the ballot was jam packed with parties and people. It used to be back in Arkansas that candidates or their representatives would draw lots for their position on the ballot. In Louisiana, Harris was in the pole position, right at the top. Trump was down the ballot in the fourth position. I’ve read that Robert Kennedy worked to get himself off the ballot in some states, but he was rock solid on my ballot, towards the back of the pack.
He wasn’t alone, though. There’s Jill Stein from Massachusetts running for the Green Party. This may be her third race. I would have to check. Cornel West, the well-known African-American professor now at Union Theological Seminary, is running as the standard-bearer for the Justice for All Party. There was someone named Chase Oliver, who has lost some races in Georgia and is a former Democrat, running for the Libertarian Party. Randall Terry is running for the top slot with the Constitution Party. Many will remember Terry as the upstate New York radical anti-abortion campaigner with a high profile some years ago.
That’s not the half of it, at least on the Louisiana ballot for president. We also have Peter Sonski from something called the American Solidarity Party. There’s Mattie Preston from the Godliness, Truth & Justice Party. The very name of that party gives you a sense of its platform, I suppose. Claudia De La Cruz is in the race from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the Socialist Workers Party is fielding Rachel Fruit. Anyone interested can find their names and their nominations for vice president on the Ballotpedia page for Louisiana or any state in the union, in a great service they provide.
I’m not voting for any on the longer list, but I like their pluck. Once you get past the top two, sadly perhaps, the rest absolutely know they can’t win. Kennedy’s candidacy was one of the most bizarre this cycle, because he seemed to be confused for a long time about his chances, when he should have known at best he would only be a spoiler. When his VP partner, an heiress as ex-wife of a Google billionaire, turned off the money spigot, he jumped to make a deal with Trump, of all people. That’s a piece a fruit that rolled a long way from the tree.
For the rest that are less delusional, some like Stein and West may see it as a platform where they might be able to express their opinions and offer their platform. For the others, it may be a way to herald their political commitments. At the end of the day on November 5th, it may be little more than something to tell their grandchildren, if they have any, that there was a day when they were on the ballot for president or vice president of this great country.
Reading about the jailing of opposition party leaders in Tanzania, Egypt, India, and other alleged democracies, at least we still allow a position on the ballot to be accessible, even if many states are trying to make access to the ballot to actually vote inaccessible.