Count the Vote

    Within the United States right now, we are experiencing one of the most massive current events that exists within the U.S. that being the Presidential Election. On the positive notes, we are seeing record high turnout numbers in the voting which is a fantastic sign of our democracy working. However, as with every election, there is some pretty massive controversy here, specifically into whose votes should be counted. Before we delve into the details of the election in particular, lets talk briefly about the context of the year 2020. This year has been dominated primarily by the news headline that has taken the whole world by storm and that is the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout this year, the world has been subject to one of the most contagious and deadliest viruses in modern human history. The repercussions of this have been vast and varied. All over the world we have seen quarantining, isolation and mask wearing from hundreds of millions of people all in a bid to protect ourselves from this virus. 

    With this context, we can approach this election with the knowledge that things were certainly going to need to take place in a different manner than they ever have before. See, throughout this year's election, along with the record turnout numbers that we have seen period for voting, we have also seen a record number of mail in votes for this year. The logic behind this record number of mail in voted predominately being the desire to avoid large crowds of people like one would be likely to see at voting stations. With these very high numbers of mail in votes we saw an uproar of individuals speaking out with fear for how the USPS would be able to operate and handle all of these increased ballots, especially with their own personal decreased workforce. A solution that we have seen implemented by many states was to accept mail-in ballots to be collected for a couple of days after the election to ensure all votes were accounted for.

    However as we have seen, there have been some serious contentions to the counting of these votes in the days after the actual election date. And it brought to mind the question for me, which is what impact, if any, does the counting of these votes have on our freedoms as a people. On one side, we see the argument that these votes being counted days after the election appears fraudulent. On the other, these votes are the wishes of the people of the U.S. and every U.S. citizen who took the time to vote should have their voice heard.

     To me the answer is clear as day, I do not believe the counting of these votes infringes upon our freedoms, as a matter of fact I see it quite the opposite. In my eyes, the opposition of freedom, in the case of the U.S. would be to exclude perfectly valid ballots from individuals whose ballots happened to be accepted after a certain date. In the case of free people and fee behavior, it appears to be contradictory to attempt to restrict expressions of said freedom based on arbitrary time frame deadlines.