From the Associated Press:
A record 1.86 million Connecticut residents voted in the Nov. 3 election, a turnout of nearly 80% of registered voters despite concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, state officials announced Wednesday.
The election results that produced wins for Joe Biden in the presidential race and five fellow Democrats in all the state’s congressional races were officially certified by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, state Treasurer Shawn Wooden and state Comptroller Kevin Lembo.
This was the first year all state residents were allowed to vote by absentee ballot, due to the pandemic. Just over 659,000 absentee ballots were counted.
About 185,000 more people voted this year than in 2016, when turnout was nearly 77%. This year’s turnout was officially 79.7% of a record 2.3 million registered voters. The second-highest turnout in recent presidential elections in Connecticut was 78.7% in 2004.
Full story here.
The record turnout doesn’t surprise me.
The numerous voting methods imposed by the pandemic, plus this year’s civil unrest, coupled with the contrast in candidates, encouraged a high participation rate.
Hail, hail, democracy!
Reasons why voters voted against 45 are his grandiose narcissism, which is often associated with unethical behavior and drives his dangerously extreme need to be liked (e.g., by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un). Both psychologists mention his likelihood to make decisions based on emotions and appearances rather than facts and science. Dr. Sherman rates Trump’s personality as low on prudence, diligence and dutifulness. These characteristics came into play in the way Trump mishandled the Coronavirus pandemic, but also in many other aspects of his presidency.
The top reason to vote against Trump
OCTOBER 28, 2020 ~ JKAYBAY
The top reason to vote against Donald Trump is his character. There, I’ve said it. And I mean character in the broad sense to include both his personality/temperament and character traits (here are two Psychology Today blog posts explaining the difference between personality and character and where temperament fits in). Voters: Consider this possibility, that the very top reason to vote against Trump is not directly related to his policies – it’s about who he is, his personality and character. I’ve looked at a lot of quotes from Republican voters who are undecided (or have already decided to vote against him) and a recurring concern is over Trump’s character. Some of the voters like his policies but can’t abide the way he behaves on Twitter. Many are embarrassed by him at times but will still stick with him because they think he represents Republican values. He actually doesn’t represent Republican values, as I argued in a previous post but, more importantly, the undecided voters should be giving Trump’s character a lot more weight in their decision-making process.
Donald Trump’s character
Several psychologists have evaluated Donald Trump’s character. The Atlantic ran a cover story in the summer of 2016, entitled The Mind of Donald Trump, in which Prof. Dan P. McAdams, personality psychology expert, analyzed Trump’s personality. Just before this, Dr. Ryne Sherman profiled Trump’s personality and character in two articles for Psychology Today. It’s not too surprising that the assessments are largely in agreement because, being an extrovert, he doesn’t hide his personality. The Atlantic article focuses on Trump’s grandiose narcissism, which is often associated with unethical behavior and drives his dangerously extreme need to be liked (e.g., by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un). Both psychologists mention his likelihood to make decisions based on emotions and appearances rather than facts and science. Dr. Sherman rates Trump’s personality as low on prudence, diligence and dutifulness. These characteristics came into play in the way Trump mishandled the Coronavirus pandemic, but also in many other aspects of his presidency.
For the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, nothing was more important than your character – not even your own life.
The following combines two perspectives on Donald Trump from an American citizen – one from just before the 2016 election and one from this year. They are both from Ryan Carlson’s blog, The Agreeable Times, and are also in agreement with the psychologists’ assessments, above. I’d recommend bearing two things in mind when reading this:
Compare the concerns over Trump’s character (expressed in 2016) with how the last four years have gone – and how the next four might go if he was reelected.
Think about how different this election is from the last – a vote for Trump can no longer be excused as an experiment to challenge the status quo.
The top reason to vote against Trump is his character
The Trump question is not about right or left. It’s about right or wrong, and the future of America and the world as we know it depends on making the right choice. This is not about Democrats and Republicans – he is a unique threat to our country and the world.
Much has been said about his coarseness and the foolishness of many of the policies he has presented, but although those are very important and have terrible implications, the most important point is what kind of person he is, the impact of his actions, and how he responds to those impacts.
He may think that he can halt the chain reaction of whatever he sets in motion by dialing it back later and acting “presidential.” But in the world of international politics, he doesn’t get to decide what happens with what he starts.
He is not a maestro playing an instrument. He is a man at the top of a hill pushing a snowball.
There are two main reasons why Trump is so dangerous:
The human side. He is creating and legitimizing hostility between different groups of people in the country and the world. This does not solve problems – it makes them worse and more difficult to resolve the longer it goes on. If it continues unchecked, it always leads to violence. All of human history proves this.
The decision-making side. His instincts and temperament are towards hasty, emotional decisions without considering or caring about the consequences and, when things don’t go his way, he responds with escalation and vindictiveness. These are the worst possible characteristics for a person whose decisions carry such weight for the future of humanity.
When we return to the time of the Founders, MEN like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, et al our DEMOCRACY limited voting by gender (women need not apply until 1920), by ownership of property, by skin color, literacy, as well as other attributes, perhaps differently defined in different voting districts. I saw one writer who suggested that only 15% of the adult population was entitled to cast a ballot, at that time. So the widening of voter rights has been a mark of our American democracy and the pursuit of making sure those rights are pursued and secured each election time as well as between is important to understand and perpetuate.
Perhaps the introduction of a vote in a Federal election among the young may influence locals to check in in 2021 when we look at our City Council persons during this time of pandemic and see what they have secured for us in this period. In thinking about the last four years, I never found myself wondering about President 45’s higher education experience. Rather I found myself thinking about the text from some years ago that bragged about how much had been learned in Kindergarten. That let me feel that Trump had too little time in a sandbox with others. When asked questions about behavior, he learned to answer quickly, blaming others, with not concern for how untruthful or fantastic a story was spun. And we, as voters, did not check out the dirty details which to a great extent were out in the open through writings from others. What are the facts and history for City Council members that we should track for next year? Time will tell.
JML, you just gloss by what you called “skin color,” it was a hell more than “skin color,” it was forced slavery which made this new nation Rich with 400 years of free labor and by law prevented blacks from voting, owning property, traveling, going to school as just a few of the “original sin” of America something that America Never dealt with, NEVER. Those 45 lovers hero is fighting for whites who have been overlooked, those overlooked whites have something that Blacks will never ever have, that’s “White Previlge.”
JML, you just gloss by what you called “skin color,” it was a hell more than “skin color,” it was forced slavery which made this new nation Rich with 400 years of free labor and by law prevented blacks from voting, owning property, traveling, going to school as just a few of the “original sin” of America something that America Never dealt with, NEVER. Those 45 lovers hero is fighting for whites who have been overlooked, those overlooked whites have something that Blacks will never ever have, that’s “White Previlge.”