This week’s blog is a little bit of an election chronicle. I have been doing faith-based political writing since the 2020 election season, although some would say that my entire ministry career has been in faith-based politics. The title of my sermon book is “Citizen Christian” after all, and my faith in action has looked like progressive or leftist politics all of my life. There is a great deal of alignment there, between the agenda of the political left and the lived Gospel of Jesus, although it isn’t a direct analog. The motivations are often very different, as are the processes used.
Anyway, I have always thought of a vote as a kind of prayer, as the popular Rev. Dr. Senator Warnock meme relates. I see all faithful action stemming from a place of love or hope or discipline as prayer, regardless of its form. Election days are important times for me, and my sense of call in the world. They are always periods of hope and despair, focus and confusion, pleas and permissions -undiluted microcosms of the usual tensions of life in the already-not yet.
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Election Day 110822
I have been praying prayers of dampening, of dispersal and deflection throughout the day. Today is Election Day 2022, and this is the beginning of the week’s blog. I put writing this week on hold until today went down, but now I feel called to document the next 36 hours as they unfold.
Rivers of milk flowing over pepper’s caustic scars, misty ocean breezes moving the sun’s heat aside, a walk-in freezer respite in a busy, crowded kitchen -dampening images of calm and settling and low simmers disappearing into steam.
All day.
I believe in the power of prayer. I know it changes me, and really that’s the only thing that’s my job. I know that common action like corporate prayer can benefit the development of community. I’ve seen it happen, how the focused care of prayer can shift a group dynamic to be less competitive, less cliquey and more tender and careful.
So results are coming in now, all over the country. We run elections a little differently here in CO. It is possible to vote in person on election day itself. In fact, we are one of only a handful of states that allow same day registration and voting. But virtually all our voting is done by mail. It’s a very secure system, with monitored and locked ballot boxes in every community throughout Colorado.
The votes cast prior to election day are administratively processed on an air-gapped system (never been nor ever will be connected to the internet) so that at the moment that polls close, some valid results can be posted. We have a clear and transparent system of checking provisional or rejected ballots called ‘curing the ballots’ and most people here expect that results will be quick but not instant, and can be trusted.
It seems that Lauren Boebert, the gun-toting restauranteur from the high country, could lose her seat in the House tonight. That’s exciting, and absolutely one of those things pundits said was impossible. Left or right leaning, regardless of party affiliation, I honestly have never come across her brand of conservative in Colorado before -the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Marsha Blackburns were laughable here, and the state GOP didn’t even hold a caucus in 2016, as they knew Trump would lose here. Which he would have, and now over 150,000 people living in Colorado actually voted for her a second time. Something unfortunate is trying to gain a foothold here.
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110922
So it is the night AFTER Election Day in America, and because we have no overall consistency or standards of practice regarding voting, expectations are all over the board nationally.
The violence I thought might lash out at voters didn’t materialize, for the most part. Or at least it didn’t yet. This is the thing that the bloody insurrection on January 6th 2021 taught me, and behaviorally taught those who would do violence and harm: Our default is white supremacy and one steeped in violence, and I can’t feel when it may rear its head or how. A murderous violent mob stormed the US Capitol grounds and then building, and no other
Well. I don’t know what I’d intended to say there. After struggling for some time, I left my laptop for a while and now can’t recall.
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11/11/22
It is clear now from the voter turnout data that young people, voters under 30, had a sizable impact on the election. The numbers are even higher when you isolate young voters of the global majority, that is nonwhite folks. This is great news, and gives me hope for the next decade.
As you all know, I do climate justice work, and have committed to focusing on preparing our systems for climate crises for the next ten years. None of what I can see as possible can happen with our current political leadership or entrenchments, and increasing the age diversity in the electorate is crucial to any necessary changes. Florida elected a 20 something to Congress (Maxwell Frost is 25, the minimum age for a House Rep) and he joins a handful of other young electeds. As participation among GenZ and Millennial voters grows, so will the number of young people who seek office. The Denver region also has a quickly growing group of 20 and 30 somethings who serve in elected office or as party officials.
It’s Veteran’s Day and it never ceases to surprise me that those conservatives who claim to be so pro-military seem unable to see the connections between military service and suicide, homelessness, trauma responses -the effects of what we call Moral Injury. It’s all real and causes serious and lasting harm. It’s also all treatable, but requires resources and different policy choices.
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-A week later-
111622
We’re now a week past election day, and our Midterm turnout was great at just over 60% nationally. I mean, I think that’s a low percentage but then again, I always vote and I know I’m an outlier. We still don’t know anything about the close races, like Boebert’s in CD3, or a sizable handful in California. It seems clear the Republicans will take control of the House but with a very slim majority.
That this balance is so easy to undermine, creating an utter disruption of the business of 1/2 of Congress, is nutso to me. One cabinet appointment or scandal induced resignation, one car accident or personal crisis, and the whole power arrangement shifts again. When either house of Congress is this balanced, business shuts down because working together for the betterment of the country isn’t really the goal. Continual ‘winning’ seems to be the only virtue at a Federal level.
As a broad concept, razor-thing margin elections reveal significant trouble in any community. Tie votes should probably be re-argued. This is not a popular concept in a world dependent on losers in order to have winners.
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111722
And back to today, the end of this Election Chronicle. For now.
In Colorado, voting can happen for a long period, by mail or in person once ballots are sent out. This year, early voting started on October 24th and continued nonstop through Election Day itself. A newcomer or new voter can even register on Election Day itself here. But the timeline doesn’t end there. Some mail-in ballots have 8 days to arrive and be counted as long as postmarked on or before Election Day, and several election officials and clerks reserve longer times for result certification simply as a matter of course.
We may be expecting instant results, and we may hope for them. But things take time, and process matters. I want every ex-pat to vote if she wants, and for each shut-in to know his vote will be counted. I want active military to trust our deliberations, and for brand new voters to find an easy path. None of that yields an instant result.
We’ll see what happens in our Body Politic as a country. I don’t suspect much will change quickly.
But we are already changing a great deal in our smaller political realms, in our cities and neighborhoods, states and regions. Popular movements pushing us towards justice are as real as any riotous mob, and ultimately more effective. That’s not only where the real work gets done, it’s how we build the relationships and networks we need to create new systems.