Millennials And Paper Ballots Sunk Trump

-by Harvey Wasserman

So now Trump-- as voiced by pardoned disciple Michael Flyn-- flirts with martial law and a “do-over” election.

He’s right about the election, of course. There WILL be a do-over… in 2024.

By then we hope to have universal hand-marked paper ballots, an end to gerrymandering, the Electoral College, money in politics and more.

As for Trump, let’s get real. Only two US incumbents-- Hoover and Carter-- got trounced worse than he did.

The core reason: Paper ballots accounted for as much as 90% of the 2020 totals. And too many millions were cast by Millennials who HATE him.

If those votes had been cast on easily-hacked electronic voting machines, Trump could’ve won in a landslide. The paper ballots came mostly by mail, because COVID made voting in person unsafe.

But the demand for hand-cast/hand-counted paper ballots has been at the core of the Election Protection movement since Florida 2000. Getting a paper ballot to all registered voters is now the gold standard for our democratic elections.

With that comes the need to protect voter registration. Prior to the 2020 vote, some 16.5 million citizens-- mostly of color-- were stripped from the poll books.

A concerted grassroots effort restored many. But the disenfranchised still numbered in the millions.

By referendum, Floridians restored more than a million ex-felons to the voter rolls, easily enough to have flipped the state to Biden. But Florida’s gerrymandered legislature stepped in to demand they pay fines or fees which were often impossible to ascertain. Thus the Trump cult delivered Florida to the Donald, and meant to do it nationwide.

Then Trump attacked Vote by Mail by sabotaging the US Postal Service. His crony Louis DeJoy wrecked delivery systems to stop ballots from reaching voters. Countless votes were “lost” on their way back to be counted. Trumpers in Texas and Ohio limited drop boxes to just one in at least one county (Harris) with a population of four-plus million.

Republican legislatures piled on to demand impossible applications, trashable affidavit and witness forms, unworkable envelopes, and confusing and contradictory directives.

But Vermont, New Jersey, DC, California and Nevada joined Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii in mailing ballots to all registered voters.

Meanwhile, countless Millennials and their Zoomer siblings revolutionized poll work, which had been handled by elders who now feared the TrumpVirus.

Election centers established in twenty NBA arenas and at least two NFL stadiums welcomed those voting in person. As early voting stretched for weeks before November 3rd, Trump’s planned KKK/militia assaults on long outdoor lines rarely materialized.

Thus came a national deluge of paper ballots that could be stored, protected, scanned, electronically tallied, and tangibly preserved for the recounts that have proven paper balloting’s real worth.

Florida’s fast, accurate tally came because it daily processed, scanned, and stored its incoming early ballots, all through early voting. On November 3rd, all that remained were those to be cast and counted on that last day. Pennsylvania delayed their processing and faced mountains of ballots to count from the end of voting on November 3rd onward. But they still got it done.

Those voting in person often faced touchscreen machines against which EP activists have warned for decades. Had the entire election been conducted on those antique theft devices, an untraceable hack could’ve won Trump the White House.

Those Dominion machines he’s been whining about can indeed be rigged. But there’s no way to tell who did the rigging or who benefitted. The Election Protection movement has been demanding for years we get rid of them.

But when he screamed foul and demanded recounts… there were the paper ballots, ready to go. In 80% or more of the nation’s precincts, scanners provided a fast read of the digital ballot images. And the mountains of hand-marked paper ballots remained for the recounting.

In other words, 2020 was an election thief’s worst nightmare. It showed American democracy can rely on 100% hand-marked, digitally scanned (with the images preserved) paper ballots readily retained for recounts.

There will be exceptions for those with special needs.

But with the rolls protected, all states can mail paper ballots to all registered voters. With a restored USPS, they can come back by mail, or in drop boxes, or in person at election centers (including those arenas and stadiums) where early voting stretches at least two weeks in advance of Election Day (which will be a national holiday).

After casting and counting more than 150,000,000 votes this year, we know how to make an election work. Trump’s recount demands have only confirmed the ultimate Truth.

As for his 7,000,000 vote thrashing, thank the Millennials.

US history’s biggest generation HATES the Donald. It voted more than 60% to dump him.

Millennials are some 85 million Americans-- history’s most racially diverse, politically progressive generation (except for the next-in-line Zoomers, who mostly can’t yet vote).

It was the tsunami of young poll workers and voters who poured in after the George Floyd marches that washed Trump away.

With only Millennials voting, Biden would’ve won Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, and more than 400 Electoral votes. The Zoomer kids were even hotter to see Trump gone.

Issue-wise it boils down to “socialism.” Millennials/Zoomers-- America’s future-- like it.

While beating Trump, the corporate Democrats (of course) blew their down-ballot races. They lost House seats, failed to take the Senate, and threw away countless chances to win state legislatures.

As always, they immediately blamed the left, whining that “socialism” cost them the middle-road swing vote.

The Clintons long ago sold the Democratic Party to Wall Street. A hollow fundraising shell, it stands for little, delivers less. In fifty years the Dems have delivered nothing beyond Obamacare to American working families. Then, inevitably, came Trump, at least pretending to care.

The corpDem gerontocracy is set to expire. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (80) and her Senate cohort Chuck Schumer (70) are dinosaurs. California’s Diane Feinstein (87) is yielding her Senate Judiciary Committee leadership.

All must soon be buried by the Millennials/Zs ...

…and by a “socialism” that includes: an end to racism and misogyny, a decent minimum wage, police reform, free higher public education, abolition of student debt, universal health care, ends to homelessness, poverty, hunger, and climate chaos, with a Green New Deal to create jobs, cheap energy, and a sustainable planet. Plus money out of politics and an end to empire.

All built around hand-marked/hand-counted paper ballots, mailed to all citizens, counted on digital scanners, with an end to gerrymandering and the Electoral College.

Had the 2020 Dems embraced all of the above and rallied the Millennials/Zs with something beyond dumping the Donald, the upcoming Congress and state legislatures might have been theirs.

Now, with or without them, we fight for a new Solartopian social democracy.

It needs the old guard corporate Democrats to follow Trump out the door.

It demands Election Protection 2024, in all its grassroots glory.

It envisions a diverse, morally just, post-imperial, eco-sustainable, green-powered social democracy.

Let’s do it!!!

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Harvey Wasserman co-convenes the weekly Election Protection 2024 ZOOM. His People’s Spiral of US History is at www.solartopia.org.

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