2016 Presidential Election

Election Day I woke at 2 am, got up at 4 am and was at my polling station at 6 pm where I served as Election Judge until 8:30 pm. Polls were open from 7 am to 7 pm, 12 hours during which I handed out 250 ballots out of a stack of more than 800. I was the only Independent in a crew of 5 terrific senior ladies. While roughly 50% of voters in Santa Fe voted early, the turn out for such an election of such utmost importance was disappointing to me, not others, but I consider less than 80% voter participation as I believe it has been reported from Denmark and from Venezuela, less than satisfactory. By the end of the day about 10% of ballots were marked invalid, still to be determined by the County Clerk and the Secretary of State, because of creative, improper write-ins. If this were to translate nation-wide, Hillary might have been our President Elect now if voters had not carelessly used their ballots as protest votes that nobody took notice of and nobody cared about! 800,000 ballots were counted in New Mexico by 11.10.2016, about 55% of eligible votes. The silver lining, New Mexicans voted for her and they took back the House of Representatives they had lost for the first time in 40 years to repugnant republican control 2 years ago. For us, this is excellent local news.

The election outcome truly shocked me. I did not think it possible for him, the narcissist, the liar, the groper and the molester, the big mouth with the silly tweets, the grotesque orange maned one with abhorrent involvements in businesses and practices that stiffed his contractors, deprived them of their dues with the skillful, but surely unethical use of repeat bankruptcies, the one that loved to fire people for entertainment, the one that had no inhibitions on walking in on beauty contestants in their varied states of undress, the one that ought to be revolting to anyone with any sense of common decency and humanity.

He won 290, electoral votes, 20 more than the required 270 votes.

She won 60,274,974 of the popular vote,  about 300,000 more votes.

His less than 60,000,000 votes make for very low voter approval.

232,556,622 eligible voters

46.9% did not vote

25.6% voted for her

25.5% voted for him

It's the economy, stupid! Trump voters were all too happy to cast all his horrible attributes aside in the hopes of him delivering the goods. Never mind the costs to women he threatened to criminalize for having abortions, to immigrants and their families he threatened to pull apart and cart off as if we were back in the thirties, or to the environment that he will hand deliver to big corporations to exploit with no regard to science and our future. The profit motive will rule. Already stocks have gone up on private prisons, eager for a boom from the holding of those lacking proper documentation.

Turns out even white women, oh the shame, participated in his having beaten her. I am with Barbara Bush in not able to fathom how a woman could ever vote for a prick like him. Yep, we got a white-lash as Van Jones put it. Rachel Maddow already blamed 3. party voters in swing states for his win. I like Cenk's break down, not sure I fully agree, but he does make some good points.

The sure loser is the Democratic Party. Will they learn? We will see soon enough by their pick of their new leader. Will it be Rep. Keith Ellison, pushed by Bernie, or will it be Howard Dean, or Tim Kaine her running mate as suggested by the NY Times? Here is Cenk's take.

How the 99% chose a 1 percenter to represent their needs will remain a mystery despite all the analysis done and yet to come. His voters will no doubt come to a rude awakening, sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, we have got to resist the fascist tendencies, the corporate take-overs and stand up for human rights and against the cruelty and meanness that already reared their ugly heads. Donate to the ACLU, locally SumosUn Pueblo Unido!