Today, Pennsylvania had its primary election, as front-page posts will no doubt update you on the returns for the high-profile races. On such days, an elected member of the Erie County (PA) Democratic Party, such as myself, has to fulfill a certain number of obligations. Today, for the second time ever, I served as a poll watcher. Now, this can be a difficult job in certain precincts, where, perhaps, the Republican approved poll watcher makes challenges and the judge of election may not know how to respond properly to such challenges. However, my own rural precinct runs like a well-oiled machine. I have never heard of any problems occurring at my polling place. As such, all I did was to hold a sign in front of the polling place in support of my state house representative, Ryan Bizzarro, for two hours, while voters came and went.
Hubby and I, of course, voted by mail a couple of weeks ago, but not everybody got the message. On the Democratic side, the only competitive race is for the State Auditor General, where 6 candidates are vying for the nomination. Otherwise, there’s not much of a choice for president (Biden), the Democratic challenger for PA-16 Congressional Representative (Kristy Gnibus), State Attorney General (Josh Shapiro), and PA state house representative (Bizzarro). (There were also delegates to the DNC to vote for, but is that even happening this year?) The Republican side is also mostly boring, since the presidential candidate is a foregone conclusion (you know who), while the Congressional Neanderthal is running for reelection (Mike Kelly). However, there is a write-in campaign for the state house representative candidate, a guy by the name of Greg Hayes. He couldn’t make it on to the primary ballot in the usual way, that is collecting a sufficient number of Republican signatures (300) in the district, because, well, a large number of the signatures on his petition were forged or had other issues of authenticity. So now he’s running as a write-in to get on the ballot for the general election, and the question is, will any Republicans be bothered by the fact that the write-in candidate illegally filed a fraudulent petition? (That’s a purely rhetorical question.)
When I arrived at the polling place at 11:00 AM (to relieve the co-committee member from my precinct), I was surprised to see two others supporting Bizzarro, both young men. It turns out one of them was the son of Bizzarro’s former chief of staff. He was wearing a sign around his neck which read “Republicans for Bizzarro,” which surprised me. (This is a thing?) It was an idea the campaign had to allow Republicans an alternative to writing in the name of a candidate who had broken the law, if that bothered them. Yeah, right. It will probably go nowhere, but if it did, Bizzarro would be on both the Democratic and Republican lines on the ballot. The fact is, the districts for state office are so thoroughly gerrymandered that it hardly matters who runs on the Republican line—Bizzarro will win. [While the US Congressional Districts before 2018 were deemed by the State Supreme Court to be an illegal gerrymander and struck down, allowing for fairer districts in the 2018 election, the districts for state elective offices, determined by another process, are still gerrymandered out the wazoo. And it’s a gerrymander that favors the Republicans, who control both houses (surprise!).]
To my surprise, Bizzarro actually rolled up about a half-hour later delivering some fast food to his campaigners. To my even greater surprise, he called me by my name as he thanked me for campaigning for him, and me wearing a mask. I don’t think we had ever been introduced. (By the way, he was not wearing either a mask or gloves, and I only realized this error after having shaken his hand. This is sobering after considering that the Republicans in the House had been aware of at least one state house member on their side who had been infected by COVID-19, but didn’t tell the Democrats.)
In my two-hour shift, not quite a hundred people showed up to cast votes. Most people were civil. A few refused to wear masks, even though there was a sign on the door saying everybody entering had to be wearing a mask. I don’t know how the poll workers managed those cases. There were a couple of people in the parking lot promoting the write-in GOP candidate. We didn’t bother each other. I did get a few thumbs-up from voters going in and out. One fellow told me he didn’t know it was election day until this morning. Others were surprised that Pennsylvania had (finally!) changed from a purely electronic voting system to paper-ballot voting (my Republican counterpart helpfully providing pens to voters going in).
So now, the returns are coming in, and we’ll see which Democrat gets on the ballot for Auditor General (probably not at the top of your list for excitement, but it’s still an important office). I’m also hoping at least one of the houses of the state government will flip to our side—it’s possible, particularly if we have a wave election. In the meantime, you can take a look at the comments below the fold, after this message from our sponsor:
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Top Comment (June 2, 2020):
From mark schroeder:
I hearby nominate this comment from JMR in Mark Sumner's front page diary: Having defamed an Episcopal church Trump decides to violate the sanctity of Catholic shrine.
“I like messiahs who weren’t crucified.”
Highlighted by mabon:
This comment by Seraph4377 in modesttraveller’s recommended post on Trump’s collapsing polls.
Top Mojo (June 1, 2020):
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Top Photos (June 1, 2020):
Tonight’s picture quilt is courtesy of jotter!