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Have YOU voted yet? The polls are still open. There is still time.

By November 5, 2024November 14th, 2024No Comments

So what comes next?

Election Expert Drew Westen, Professor Emeritus, Emory University, advises, and MY RURAL AMERICA agrees:  Election News Reporters must be prepared “to speak repeatedly about the Trump team’s intent tonight to declare victory if they are ahead on same-day voting.”  That is what the Trump team did last time, and afterward, they screamed fraud when the final numbers—same-day voting, absentee ballots, and all safety checks—were calculated.

There is a well-planned legal strategy and teams ready to go; this is good.   But Dr. Westen has not seen a developed communications strategy, and neither have we at MY RURAL AMERICA.

In 2020, the misinformation landed in legal teams’ hands, but some voters had shut down by then.  They saw the first numbers but did not understand that they were not final and did not include counting all the ballots.  Those numbers were only the beginning of the count, like grocery shopping—if we add up the cost carefully through the fifth aisle and then stop counting through the last two aisles as we finish shopping, we will have a surprise at the cash register.   Every ballot must be counted and double-checked before we can know who wins.

We’ve voted:  What We Need to Do Next!

Start talking with your friends about what to expect.  Prepare your people for the best and the worst results.  Do this even with people with whom you disagree about politics.
  1. Help them understand that Trump is likely to declare victory before the final count of the victory.
  2. Remind folks that his “declarations of victory” are meaningless; the last ballots must be counted.  Some counties will come in early, and those counties may look like a significant victory for one side or the other, but nothing is final yet.
  3. Point out that all the counties and all the absentee ballots must be counted before conclusions can be made.
  4. Try to avoid saying, “WOW!  we are way ahead, or they are way ahead!”  Instead, stick to the facts as they roll out — 1/3 of the counties have reported that rural counties (but no urban counties) are in.  Note that partial counts are meaningless compared to the final count.
  5. Teach people to be patient.  Projections on television are guesstimates, not conclusions.  If you see a reporter going on about surprising results, just relax.  Until the last ballot is counted, surprising results don’t matter.
  6. Remind people that patience may be necessary.  Some candidates — likely Trump and his team– will likely jump in ahead of the final numbers.
We must prepare people for the worst as well as the best.  We also need to practice being good sports and do our best to teach people that everyone must be good sports, win or lose.
Preparing people for the best and the worst news is a little like when you have a very sick relative; the person could die or could recover, and we need to be ready for either happening.
Tonight, it will be essential to flip around on all the channels to see what news reporters are saying on different stations.  Listen and take the news with a grain of salt.  Nothing is final.  Avoid jumping to conclusions.  Skip the celebrations until we know there are hard facts to celebrate.  Help your friends stay calm.  We can do this.