2 weeks Ago
It’s time to vote. After months — really, years — of buildup, the 2024 general election is finally upon us. Polls will be open from 7 a.
m. to 7 p.m.
on Tuesday, Nov. 5. I took advantage of South Carolina’s early voting period and cast my ballot a few days ago.
Today is the last day you can vote early. As one politician said, early voting is a good idea because you never know what will happen on election day. The process was fairly straightforward, and I was in and out in about 30 minutes.
As usual, I thanked the poll workers for doing this necessary but unglamorous job. The presidential election is generating the most noise, but there are a number of important local races that will be decided. We’ll elect a new sheriff for Aiken County and a new member for S.
C. House of Representatives District 81. The ballot questions concerning Capital Project Sales Tax V and the Education Capital Improvement Sales Tax also are important.
They are both commonly known as the penny tax, and neither is a new tax. Rather, it’s a continuation of the existing taxes. I’m not ashamed to say I voted in favor of both of those questions.
The Capital Project Sales Tax helps in a number of ways, giving the county many capital improvements and keeping our property taxes in line. The Education Capital Improvement Sales Tax will fund much-needed improvements for five area schools. Now, back to the main event.
Former President Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, and current Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee. You’ve no doubt been bombarded by TV commercials from both sides, touting why you shouldn’t vote for either candidate. It’s predictable that “attack” ads are preferred over actually touting what the candidate has accomplished.
The Aiken Standard has not run endorsements of political candidates for several years. Some of the country’s biggest newspapers — The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times — faced severe backlash in the wake of their decisions to not make an endorsement this time around. The editorial page staff of both papers had reportedly prepared endorsements for Harris, but the move was seen as an attempt to not anger Trump should he regain the Oval Office.
Aiken County has traditionally been a GOP stronghold, although we are seeing more Democrats emerge to run against Republicans. If history holds true, Aiken County and South Carolina will support Trump. That’s an easy prediction to make.
Less predictable is what will happen in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The latest polls show they are neck and neck with less than a week before the election. In the good ol’ days you could go to bed on election night and wake up the next morning and find the results in your daily newspaper.
Most of the time the winner was known around midnight, give or take a few minutes. Remember the classic “Dewey Defeats Truman” banner headline that ran in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1948? That was an unfortunate gaffe. I hope I’m never on the wrong side of one of those headlines.
With the Aiken Standard’s early print deadlines, we won’t have results in the Wednesday print issue. But we will have it all online as soon as we know the results at www.aikenstandard.
com , and we’ll include the results in Thursday’s print edition. After the last presidential election, I would be very surprised if we knew a winner the day after the election. I also expect there to be legal challenges.
In 2020, the nation had to wait three agonizing days before Joe Biden was declared the winner. I’m hoping we can determine a winner in a reasonable amount of time and get on with our lives. If you have the right to vote, please use it.
Thanks for reading..
