Recently I made my own envelope out of a sheet of paper and sticky tape, signed it and affixed a sticker. Then I took it to my nearest Australia Post shop in Sydney and mailed it.
In other words, I voted from abroad in the US midterm elections. Because my last place of residence in the US was the state of Virginia, I can register to vote and request a ballot online, but the ballot still needs to be printed, signed, sealed in an envelope made of folded paper, signed again, placed inside another (store-bought) envelope and mailed in. There was no sausage sizzle or cake stall to reward me for my civic duty, and no spectre of a fine if I didn’t complete it.
I give a wide berth to anything resembling a craft project (haunted by the ghosts of Easter hat parades past) but I would cross-stitch a ballot if it lessened the power that President Trump wields over my country of birth. Hell, I would papier-mache an airplane and decoupage a pilot’s licence to deliver my vote in person.
Unfortunately, not everyone is as fervent: voter turnout in the midterm elections in the US is typically less than half the eligible voting population. The midterms are viewed as less important; in-person voting is arduous and inconvenient (with long queues, on a weekday rather than a Saturday) and some voters view state-based elections as secondary to the presidential election.
The current administration is trying to reduce voter turnout even more because things are not looking good for Republican candidates. They have gerrymandered, sued the state of California for refusing to disenfranchise 20,000 voters, tried to restrict mail-in voting (this was blocked by the supreme court) and already made a challenge to Alaska’s Senate election results if the incumbent Republican senator Dan Sullivan does not win.
Can you smell it from here? That’s not raw sewage overflow from the recent heavy rains, that’s Trump’s fear.
Democrats only need three seats to gain majority in the House of Representatives and four to gain majority in the Senate. If the Democrats control Congress it will be far more difficult for Trump to get his laws through. They could create committees to investigate the president and even begin an impeachment trial.
Trump’s egregiously named Operation Epic Fury has caused the price of fuel to skyrocket and most Americans (two-thirds) now view the ongoing war against Iran as a mistake. As the price of fuel goes up, Trump’s approval rating sinks. (His dismantling of democracy and campaign of disinformation didn’t seem to disturb voters in the same way that this hit to the hip pocket does.)
I am cautiously hopeful. I’ve spent the past two years wishing I was Canadian and rushing to turn off the radio or television at the sound of Trump’s hyperbole. Perfecting my simultaneous sigh and shrug when people hear my accent and ask me to explain how and why the bully-in-chief was re-elected.
But I keep recalling the awful events of 6 January 2021, when in the wake of a Trump rally, an angry rightwing mob attacked the US Capitol building after his defeat in the 2020 elections. Five people died and 174 police officers were injured while the rest of the world watched in horror. As a child in Arlington, Virginia, I visited those rotundas and chambers on field trips. As an adult here in Australia, I worried over friends and family who live and work in Washington DC. If the Republican candidates are defeated in these elections, will the administration accept the results?
There are three million Americans who live abroad and more than 110,000 here in Australia (around 60% of us have Australian citizenship). It will be nail-biting to watch the 3 November midterm elections, but easier from afar than from within Trump’s America: a country where immigrants are endangered, abortion rights have been eroded, artificial intelligence has grown without regulation and foreign aid, environmental protections and domestic social services have been gutted. Even Trump’s tariffs are backfiring for the United States, uniting the countries they are aimed against, such as Canada. Elbows up!
These midterms, I am hopeful it will be a win for democracy rather than dictatorship, for peace rather than war, and humanity rather than hubris.
Just please, whatever happens, don’t ask me to explain the electoral college come 2028.
