I was at a political event last night which I'll tell you about later. An oft-heard discussion topic was, of course, "What do you think will happen on Tuesday?" I heard absolutely no one make the following prediction but I will courageously post it here.
I think Tuesday will be the messiest Election Day in the history of Election Days. I think at some polls people will be waiting in line for a ridiculous number of hours and you'll hear all sorts of reports of governors and judges ordering polling places to stay open late to accommodate hundreds of voters who are still in line when the polls were supposed to close.
I think reporters all day will be pouncing on stories of voting machines not working…or registering a vote for Candidate A when the voter clearly chose B…and people being turned away when they clearly should have been allowed to vote. You will hear the term "provisional ballot" hundreds of times. You will also hear terms like "voter fraud" and "hacking" and "challenge the outcome" and "voter intimidation." Somewhere, there will be protesters or "poll watchers" who will be charged with trying to scare legitimate voters away.
You will also hear the word "recount" a lot. And "investigation." And maybe even "Russia."
And of course, you'll have You-Know-Who fanning the flames, charging that every race where the Democrat won was won by cheating and that the Republican should be seated and he already has the proof to reverse the outcome and send many, many people to prison. In the meantime, every race where the Republican won is a huge (excuse me, yuge) victory which would have been even bigger if the Dems hadn't hacked and conspired and he's going to have it investigated and he already has the proof to send many, many people to prison.
What I'm getting at is that you may be eager for this all to be over on Tuesday night before you get to bed but it probably won't be over on Tuesday night. We may all go beddy-bye with many cliffhangers still dangling out there…and people charging fraud over votes their side seems to be losing. In some cases, they may even be right.