If only ....

.... this was really the last lap.

I think that it is not all that unlikely that the incumbent president will be retained. Refer to the September 29 post on this blog for the reasoning behind that horror. I also think it is actually quite likely that the incumbent president will win the "regular"--in person on election day--vote and that vote will be widely reported. These reports will be acted on as if they were true and some of the more disturbing oh-that-can't-happen possibilities that have been floated will become much less unlikely.

**White House claims victory and sues to stop additional counting. The worst-case scenarios for a Supreme Court resolution of the election immediately come into semi-serious play. I don't think this will happen because the Supreme Court will decline to hear the case until the matter has gone through the system; I don't think any of the nine want to be involved in another ballot counting exercise.

**The incumbent's campaign and the Republican national and state committees fight house to house, or more accurately board of election to board of election, to freeze the election. As the September 29 post indicates, the Republicans have exhibited the determination, tenacity, and discipline to do the local organizing and campaigning necessary to elect secretaries of state and turn out the squads of lawyers and other riffraff needed to make this workable. In the meantime, the Democrats have spent their time celebrating their diversities of identity (but specifically leaving out the largest identity) and creating catchy but horrifically divisive and ineffective political slogans. See September 30 post.

**Gangs of armed ass clowns quickly descend on the various bureaucratic backwaters engaged in counting the votes, and depending on the outcomes there, rally on the White House and "stand by." In their own minds--and I'll keep the words short enough to fit that mold--"He's in. He's ours. You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hand."

I'd never have thought myself able to write a paragraph like that until I saw Michigan allow armed gunmen to roam their State House and a president of the United States tell such elements that this is OK. Please understand these people are America's brown shirts, no matter how cheerful the tropical patterns on their Hawaiian costumes.

Why do I think these are not the impossible outcomes we all wish they were; even the president's team isn't actually hoping for a clusterbugger. Last night the network news reported survey data that about 60 percent of Democrats had either already voted or intended to vote by mail or other early voting mechanism. About 30 percent of Republicans had or intended to use non-standard voting mechanisms.

No big deal so far, but when the results are being counted almost all of the early ballots will be among the last counted. The in-person-on-election-day results are often reported at the polling places several times during the day. These reports are a big part of the unofficial results reported on TV and other instant-gratification media. With a much higher part of that standard vote counted on election night and most of the early ballots out of the count until much later that night , and not complete until days later, the TV counts that might very well set off the disaster cascades set forth above. I hope that won't be true, but my hopes are frail, faint, and generally unrealized. Sorry.