Editor’s Note: On elections early voting and endorsements

Editor’s Note: On elections, early voting and endorsements

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Who’s ready for Tuesday to be over?

I ask that strictly as a rhetorical question, one that really shouldn’t be asked at all.

Election Day has been a hallowed event on the civic calendar of democratic nations for decades.

But especially for the last decade or so, and in particular the last few months, the voting public in the United States, Georgia and even in Cobb County has weathered what has seemed to be a constant rhetorical war.

Overheated and apocalyptic rhetoric has become the hallmark of both major political parties, advocacy groups of all kinds and the media, as they gleefully hurl and repeat these ludicrous contentions about those seeking your vote:

Fascists, Nazis, Hitler, Commie Libtards, Garbage, Stupid, Lazy, etc.

There are plenty more epithets being bandied about, and surely more to follow in Tuesday’s voting finale, and the ballot-counting mayhem that’s certain to ensue.

With three weeks of early voting here in Georgia, admonitions to get out and vote! have been relentless.

Many of you have done so, in record numbers, here in Cobb and Georgia, as we buckle up to be a presidential battleground state yet again.

We’re told to be proud of this high turnout, and it is encouraging that so many citizens are paying attention to those who are seeking elected office.

But as I dawdled over whether to join you, I recalled what baseball Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra, master of the malapropism, is said to have quipped in response to a question about frequenting a popular restaurant:

“Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.”

That’s sort of how I feel about early voting.

I’m not undecided about anything that’s on my ballot, but after several years of voting early, it’s lost its appeal for me. Lines have been long at times, other times not so much.

Yet that’s not why I am reluctant now to vote early. I voted absentee in 2020, like many people. It was easy, and convenient and I felt my vote was secure.

I waited for a while to choose when to vote this year, until, as Berra also said, “when you come to a fork in the road . . . take it.”

I enjoy the excitement of going to the polls on Election Day and casting a ballot that will be counted that day, and not having to wait long to find out the result.

I found the exhortations from those holding up their “I Voted” stickers two weeks ahead of time a bit off-putting, along with constant text messages from shadowy groups who know whether or not you’ve voted.

I know there’s no going back to Election Day-only voting, but other nations seem to handle it just fine—witness the recent elections in Great Britain and France, with all the results known within hours.

Like those countries, I would be in favor making Election Day a national holiday. Schools are already out here on Tuesday, so why not work too?

Or hold elections on a weekend. In recent regional German elections, the polls closed around sundown on a Sunday, and by mid-evening the returns were in.

Here, we may be facing days and even weeks before all the votes are counted in some states, and already lawsuits have been threatened or filed to manipulate the process.

So on Tuesday I will resume an old tradition that I’ve missed the last couple of election cycles.

I’ll go to my precinct late morning, cast my vote, affix my sticker to my shirt, and grab a late breakfast at Waffle House: Two eggs scrambled, whole-wheat toast, sausage and hash browns, smothered.

I want to reconnect with that, and a mid-afternoon siesta—”I usually take a two-hour nap from 1 to 4,” another Yogi classic—before a long night of reporting on local election results for you.

The august practice of newspaper political endorsements has been dwindling for a couple of decades, mirroring industry decline. Not long after I left The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2008, it discontinued that practice.

One of the factors was the shuttering of suburban offices—I worked at the Cobb bureau off the Marietta Square in the early 1990s—that provided editorial writers with crucial information about candidates and issues in down-ballot races.

Other newspapers have also dropped endorsements for similar reasons, without much fuss from their readers.

But when The Washington Post announced it wouldn’t endorse in this presidential race—after an intervention from publisher Jeff Bezos—several editorial staffers resigned. The same happened at the Los Angeles Times, which also went neutral at the last minute.

The Post editorial page staff—which is separate from newsroom reporters and editors—had prepared an endorsement for Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, when Bezos stepped in.

Many readers cancelled their subscriptions, and legendary Post names like Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of Watergate fame weighed in with the gravitas that’s all the rage these days.

As a former legacy newspaper reporter turned independent local news operator, I found that amusing. In my days in the print world, I knew that political endorsements rarely swayed readers.

I also knew that no matter what the editorial page staff decided, that was the voice of the paper. I was a reporter, not an opinionator.

But as a publisher myself, I see this matter through different eyes. Bezos offered a common-sense reply as he battles to right the ship of a newspaper that lost nearly $80 million last year.

He’s been at the helm for more than a decade, so his reign surely can be questioned about all the red ink that’s been spilled.

But his larger concern—about a loss of credibility in legacy (traditional) media—is a valid one.

The trust of our readers, our audience, and our communities is all we have. Journalists are keen to tell the public what they think about many things, including whom to vote for.

But the public that isn’t amped up 24/7 on politics isn’t buying that these days.

East Cobb News doesn’t endorse candidates or ballot issues and never will.

The reason this site exists is to address the dearth of local news here.

Our mission is to provide you with information about what’s happening around you so you can make up your mind, and to take action if you wish.

You don’t need us to tell us you what you think or how to vote. Every post on this site and our social media channels is available for reader comments, and we get plenty.

We always want to hear from you about your concerns—political or otherwise—that may shape our everyday coverage.

As we prepare to close another eventful election year, that offer remains standing, and always will.

Despite the shrieks about “saving democracy!”–presumably by voting for candidates preferred by those doing the shouting—we’ll stick with a cliched, but true adage that has served us well, about doing the reporting, and letting you do the deciding.

That’s a tradition worth saving, and it’s no Yogism at all.

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