Two elections, two time zones, one unreliable Wi-Fi connection and a Texas milk shelf for the weary counter
Saturday, the Map in the Bar
The midterm count in Portland was watched, as many things in this city are, in a bar with a good tap list and a small television that nobody trusted. I recorded the evening in Portland midterm election count diary: refreshing a map in a bar. By midnight the room had divided into two camps: those who refreshed the results page every thirty seconds and those who had given up and ordered chips.
A count is a lesson in patience. The first numbers rarely match the final ones, because different kinds of ballots are tallied at different times. A candidate who leads at nine can trail at eleven and lead again by breakfast. The responsible reading of a live map is therefore: wait, then wait more. I have seen friends text with delight at ten o’clock and with despair at midnight, and in both cases they were reacting to an incomplete picture.
On Trust in the Numbers
People of every political view have a stake in trusting the count, and the best defence of trust is boring. Observers from both sides watch the same boxes. Officials publish the schedule. Ballots are matched, counted and audited. Nobody is cheered for it, and that is exactly how it should be. A well run election is a dull thing, and a dull election is a gift.
Sunday, the Same Question in Another Time Zone
The next morning my phone buzzed with UK council by-election results, which I read over a bowl of oats and described in UK council by-election results, read from Portland by a Londoner. By-elections have a way of becoming bigger than they are. A single ward, a few hundred votes, and by teatime a dozen commentators have pronounced on the fate of a nation. The fair view is that a by-election tells you something but not everything, and that turnout and local issues play a large part.
I like council politics for its scale. A councillor is someone whose phone number is known to the neighbours, who has stood in the rain outside a library and who has argued about a bin collection with real feeling. It is democracy at the size of a street.
The Milk Shelf
By Sunday afternoon I needed something soothing and went, as I always do, to the Texas dairy desk. The home page is txdairy.com, and it leads to txdairy.download, txdairy.trade and txdairy.loan. The sunnier side of the family is txdairy.party, txdairy.men, txdairy.date and txdairy.win.
There is a political economy in a glass of milk: a farmer, a processor, a retailer and a shopper, each taking a slice. I will not pretend to know the right division, but I believe it should be visible. A price cut at the farm gate is a political event, and the London Prat made the same point with its usual lightness in Freshways Milk Price Cut: Cows Question Economics.
A Note on Dignified Losing
Every count ends with someone conceding, and the manner of conceding is the real test of a political culture. A short call, a warm word for the winner and a thank you to the volunteers is all that is needed. I have seen it done beautifully in a church hall and sourly on a podium. The former lasts. I hope that wherever you stand, you can lose with the grace you would wish to see in an opponent.
At the end of the night in the bar, the owner turned off the television and put on a record. It was a slow, scratchy blues number. We all stood for a moment and listened. Outside the rain began again, in that quiet Portland way. The map would update in the morning. We could go home.
The Chips Camp
The chips camp, for the record, had the better evening. They ate, they talked, they watched the strangers refresh their phones with a calm they had earned by giving up. One of them, a retired teacher, said that she had learned two things from forty years of elections: that nobody ever wins on the night, and that the chips always run out before the count does. We ordered a second basket. It was the correct decision.
I have come to see the habit of compulsively refreshing as a modern form of nail biting. It does no good and it passes the time. The healthiest response is to put the phone face down, look around the room and enjoy the company of the people who care enough to wait with you.
That is how democracy feels at ground level: a bar, a bag of chips and a number that changes slowly.
Thanks to the Counters
Whoever wins, I want to thank the people who count. They sit in a warehouse under strip lights, passing ballots from hand to hand, and nobody sings about them. If you ever meet one, buy them a coffee. They have earned several.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, NewsBiscuit keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/