Voting: No Fraud, No Endorsements
Terry H. Schwadron
Oct. 28, 2024
For this household, it’s over. We voted in the first hour of the first day of early voting in our neighborhood, a friendly environment where despite big turnout, lines were blessedly short, and the talk in a short line was of relief that maybe the hyperbolic craziness of the presidential campaign claims would stop — at least temporarily and at least for us.
After all the yelling about migrants eating pets, the name-calling and insults, the revisionist history writing that continues at high volume, the competing visions of America and the possible end to democracy as we know it, the end came down to filling in a single oval with pen ink legible enough to be read in an electronic scan.
As we had a plan to fill out the ballot, the voting process was over in under two minutes. Now we will wait weeks for the outcome, and the reactions to the outcome, and the inevitable challenges, misdoings and the rest to foul any chance of a compromising government to form. By all accounts, Trump or Harris may win only by a nose but may declare a landslide to commit a seriously divided nation to wholesale moral and structural remake.
It was all surgically clean. There were no hysterics in filling in the ballot, sadly not even an exclamation point or a place to write in next to the presidential candidate a summary judgment of just how nuts or dangerous we have concluded the opponent might be.
There were plenty of vote wardens to help speed the process, checks and balances about confirming identity. That single filled-in oval was hardly distinguishable on the page from the next one; the chances of “vote fraud” seemed nil, especially when compared to the numbers of those who simply find the entire election distasteful.
Voting Without Endorsements
We knew our vote choices without the advice of the billionaire publishers of The Washington Post or The Los Angeles Times, where I once worked, who without adequate explanation simply killed their paper’s endorsement editorials for Kamala Harris. We just paid attention to the candidates themselves.
Perhaps Jeff Bezos, owner of The Post, or Patrick Soon-Shiong in Los Angeles, have let their many non-journalistic business ventures that need government regulators’ approval dictate their actions in withholding the Harris endorsements that were being prepared. Perhaps they have some last-minute business concerns about losing audience from Donald Trump supporters. Whatever the reason, I concur with former Post Editor Marty Baron, a friend, that the decision was “spineless,” particularly for The Post, which displays a slogan that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Said Baron: “This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,”
If these two billionaires didn’t want to be in this business for some reasons other than profit, perhaps they should not have bought newspapers. It’s a constant business headache and investment in quality journalism is not the easiest way to big profits. If they wanted to support the best in journalism, this is a poor way to show off deference to power.
By contrast, The New York Times has editorialized more than once that Trump is unfit for election, but has drawn press criticism from the Left for too often treating Trump as a “normal” candidate, not one intent on bringing down democratic norms — a different kind of journalistic argument. In any case, The Times’ editorials reflected what has been clear about Trump’s various dark promises, his checkered record, and his constantly dividing remarks, not some new insight.
Indeed, the whole idea of endorsements is shaky reasoning for me on which to cast my vote.
Few national news organizations have endorsed Trump; The New York Post owned by Rupert Murdoch is one exception.
Of course, our votes in this household were not influenced by other endorsements, whether from Beyonce or Taylor Swift, or sports figures or even senators and former presidents. It has been enlightening to hear how hundreds of former Trump staffers and counselors have concluded that Trump is unfit for office, but Trump has been making that clear all by himself.
Networks don’t endorse candidates — being required by law to offer “equal time,” but no thinking viewer believes that the news and commentary presented on Fox and MSNBC are even about the same event. Nor does my local Whole Foods market, also owned by Bezos, or Jamie Dimon, head of JP Morgan Chase, as claimed by Trump even though it never happened, though Vladimir Putin is reported to have said Trump’s name aloud as his choice, whether in jest as he claimed or reflecting the Trump adoration he receives. Endorsements have become a game by themselves.
News and Comment
It’s a quaint custom, perhaps. Newspapers have endorsed out of the thinking that it is the reasoning that matters more than the name, that voters might need some help cutting through all the political advertising that has turned campaigns into marketing efforts.
News organizations take precautions to keep News and Editorial Departments separate just for this purpose.
By journalistic tradition, publishers set up systems to encourage reporters to commit serious journalism without fear from management, and editorial departments meet with the publisher/owners about the organization’s “stand” on various public matters, meanwhile ideally presenting a buffet of opinion pieces from diverse points of view.
In that regard, Bezos and Soon-Shiong have done themselves, their news organizations and the journalists who work for them a huge disservice, and they have managed to issue a stamp of approval for billionaire disdain for the average voter or reader.
The candidates and their handlers understand all this and use stunts, gimmicks, partial information and misinformation to twist even the most verifiable facts into personal attacks and selective public relations.
Collectively, we had already spent $16 billion on this year’s electioneering by this month, according to required federal spending reports. It’s a lot of money that could have staffed migrant asylum claims or underwritten childcare tax credits or boosted Social Security. It’s been spent largely on ads and rallies aimed at telling you that the other candidate is no good or to foul the count of our votes in the next days.
I was happy to secure a solid vote by voting early. I would be happier yet if I learn that the required majority of Americans electors agree with me.
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