Notes from polling precinct 3 November 2020 USA General Election

 

scenes early morning and later afternoon in Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

Pandemic and relatively recent voting law changes in this state to allow "no reason absentee voting" resulted in something like 3 million ballots around Michigan's 83 counties being voted by mail, drop off at the respective county clerk office or its designated dropbox(es), or in some cases "early voting" at the counter of the clerk's office. So even after the in-person, conventional voting period from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. ended and each of the 76 precincts in the city of Grand Rapids transmitted their results electronically (and by paper and duplicating SD card delivery to the tabulating headquarters), still the results could not be concluded while the many mail-in and absentee votes were being tabulated by an army of workers. While states like Florida allowed early votes to be processed in the days ahead of the precinct in-person voting, the Republican-controlled legislation in Michigan refused to allow any processing ahead of time with the exception of jurisdictions of 25,000 or more residents. In that case the outer envelope could be opened 24 hours before the voting day.

These photos show a few of the scenes at a 1928 neighborhood elementary school vacated by the pandemic so that children are relegated to online connection to teachers and peers. The day begins with crews delivering the voting equipment the day before and then the poll worker chairperson opening the door to fellow workers at 5:45 a.m. to begin setting up the gymnasium polling place starting at 6 a.m. and then declaring "The polling place is now open" at 7:00 a.m. In this case about 5 voters keen to be at the head of the line had arrived a hour before that official start time. But very soon the line ran from the first station (writing name, address, date of birth) for application to vote, all along the hallway and out the door, over the sidewalk leading the roadside and all along that streetside sidewalk for a total length of perhaps 80-90 yards.

There are 2594 voters in this precinct (maximum of 2999 per precinct by law): on this day at this precinct 763 voted in person, of which 1 man did not accept the mask offered him; another had a health condition precluding mask-wearing. All others waited in mask, mostly silently. Some people engaged with their smartphone in texting, reading, gaming, or with earbuds connected for music, recorded book, news, or podcast. The first 2 hours were long, long, long lines socially spaced, requiring about 90 minutes from lining up to leaving the polling place. By noon there was just a 10-minute wait thanks to a helpful "challenger" (party-appointed and registered observer) who called in 6 cardboard booths to supplement the 7 that had been assigned. From noon to 8 p.m. things faded away until just 200 or so arrived in dribs and drabs in those final 6-7 hours. Impressionistically, it seemed like many women under the age of 35 showed up in person and a certain proportion of retired people, too. One of the young women sported a Trump-branded face mask, which is disallowed on the polling premises. So she was politely asked to reverse it, which she did. The seven assigned poll workers never flagged during the 14 hours. When all was tidied up and signatures showing full-day work, certifying all steps fulfilled, and so on, then the chairperson and 1 of the others made the drive downtown to the headquarters to deliver the data and supplies. So their day was even longer than for the others.

In the 2016 vote when there was no pandemic and before Michigan's "no reason absentee" voting, the election DJ Trump brought 800+ voters to this same precinct in person. For the 2020 General Election maybe half the votes (still being counted at DeVos Hall downtown) were early or dropbox or mailed in. So the total number of ballots seems to be more than in 2016. For poll workers 14 hours makes for a long day. When greeted or directed to the entry door, several voters remarked "this is my first time to vote." In some ways the shiny hallway, silent lines, solemn context stirred by in the frenzy of mass media and online-targeted user campaign advertising contributed to the whole experience being quasi-religious or civic ritualistic.

Outdoor movie night hosted at church parking lot

Summer get-together during Covid-19 pandemic, masks at hand, as needed

Here and there the cars park to face the inflatable movie screen and sound system. The closest space is cordoned off for people to arrange their chairs without any worry about cars being in the way. Before the sky darkened enough for the digital projector to fill the screen, a rock and roll trio of church members played a few sets of pop songs as church members, friends, and members of the general public began to arrive and socialize, either with masks (especially those with their own health problems, or anxious about any risk caused by bringing Covid-19 back home to others or infecting co-workers) or by keeping approximately 6 feet between each other.

As the pandemic overtook this county seat in middle February, the church's liturgical calendar was complicated by the need to close the building. Fairly soon their leadership arrived at a solution involving drive-in worship: people isolate themselves in their car or truck, then tune into the low-power FM signal on their phone or car radio to listen to whoever is at the microphone, sometimes broadcasting from indoors and sometimes from outdoors. Initially things were restricted to outdoor, in-car, gatherings. Then the Michigan governor made incremental changes to the emergency orders and gatherings out of doors up to 100 persons (in masks) developed. At one point limited indoor worship also was permitted with distancing, masking, and limiting the exposure time. These days there are some worshipers who scatter themselves widely among the pews inside and others in their cars at the worship hour on Sunday mornings. The worship leader makes an effort to broadcast from both indoors and outdoors over the course of the service so that everyone has a chance to see him in person, rather than hearing only a disembodied voice.

The logistics of serving the sacrament of communion was a challenge to overcome. Eventually, they created individual serving size packets for each person taking the communion. The commercial ones use grape juice instead of wine (grape juice that has been fermented). So in the interest of conforming to pre-pandemic customs of using wine, the church crew prepares their own individual serving size packets.

This photo is taken soon after the movie began. The wide-angle lens exaggerates the small dimension of the projector screen. In fact it is the size of a very small house side. All together there were  perhaps 50-70 people attending of all ages, mostly adults, many of them retired or nearing retirement age. By way of concessions for sale, a brightly painted and lit up ice-cream truck was open for business to the left of this frame, near the church entrance. A table on the porch of the church had pop-corn and soft-drinks on offer, too. The evening music group with amplified speakers was playing near the corner nearest the church and movie screen.

Everybody seemed especially grateful for the chance to mingle informally in the warm summer evening, either unmasked and keeping their distance from each other, or standing at the pre-pandemic accustomed "personal space" of 3-4 feet apart.

Funerial social distance, May 13 west Michigan

Late afternoon Wednesday more than a dozen people gathered at the burial ground next to the hole in the ground that had been prepared for interment. Most were wearing masks to keep from transmitting the water droplets of their breath or talking or praying or singing or crying. A line of personal automobiles lined the access lane to the left of this picture taken at the streetside western boundary to the cemetery. The graveyard appears to be city owned, since the municipal symbol appears at the entrance road and the bright yellow vehicles in this photo belong to the city: backhoe to excavate the sandy ground, and the hydraulic liftbed truck to hold the sand to be returned to the grave after the body of the deceased is laid to rest.

click image for larger display: black hearse bearing the casket at left (5/2020)

At the end of the ceremony the bereaved family and friends stepped to the side to allow the liftbed truck to line up and the workers to guide the stream of backfill into the grave, burying the casket for all time. Then the mourners arranged some hanging baskets (on the ground for now and later to be retrieved as memory of the occasion to be cared for and displayed at home), as well as wreath stand. Each of the attendees left a single cut spring flower to dress the grave.

With the precautions to minimize transmission of the coronavirus during this pandemic, in addition to most people wearing masks, for the most part everybody kept their distance from each other (social distancing) - about six feet. At least one group photo was taken, though, in which some of the people pushed together to fit into the composition frame. According to radio reporting, funeral parlors have allowed visitors to pay their last respects at set intervals to keep physical distance and time gaps between each person. And in churches, too, funeral attendees have been limited to remote viewing (online streaming or recorded view) and/or physical spacing in the worship hall by blocking some of the pews to create buffers between those seated.

The full-size photo is online at https://www.flickr.com/photos/anthroview/49897923666 and the grave photo is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/anthroview/49898233317

Masked times, Covid 19 grocery shopping

surgical mask (left) and home-made cloth mask (right), ready for next grocery trip

Early March 2020 is when the people in the state of Michigan were instructed to “stay home, stay safe” and venture out only for essential workers (food, medical, car care, dog walking). But around the middle of April all grocery visits were no longer advised but now were required to be made with some form of mask (scarf, bandana, surgical, home-made cloth). This photo dates from the time of obligatory masks.

People remember the pre-Covid-19 social life, carefree about social distancing 6 feet apart (more for athletes breathing heavily). And at the moment people seem to be nonplussed by the normality of seeing everybody in some form of mouth/nose cover. Probably a time will come when only the high-risk people will carry a mask. Perhaps a vaccine will protect them and then most of the pre-virus habits will return. Memory is a fickle thing and all too soon lessons learned and habits formed will be lost to the mists of time. A look back at scenes from the midst of the pandemic will be regarded as alien or outlandish. And yet right now that is the standard practice, the “new normal” for May 2020.

Covid-19 pandemic, new waste streams

latex glove near city street in Grand Rapids, April 13, 2020

Five months after the Wuhan outbreak of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and four weeks after the State of Michigan lockdown of all private enterprise, except food and medicine and car fueling, there are a few signs of the pandemic here in west Michigan's biggest city. Confirmed cases of Covid-19 now in Michigan top 24,000, but many more are contagious and showing few or no symptoms. That same number happens to be the nation-wide death count so far. Half of the known cases in Michigan are Detroit and surrounding counties. So far 1400 people in the state have died from c-19 complications.

Here are some signs of the pandemic. Schools are closed, along with all non-essential business operations. People sometimes park at stores by leaving an interval from the next nearest car. Maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of customers don masks of some kind (commercially produced or homemade or jerry-rigged scarfs, etc) to trap their own breath (inhaling others' water droplets is reduced, too; but one's own expelled droplets are trapped most of all). Recommendations for social distancing at 6 feet apart are expanded for runners and bikers, who create a slipstream of water droplets when they exhale. The above photo shows the wide-spread use of vinyl or latex disposable gloves to use when selecting purchases at retail store, or when grabbing the handle to fill one's gas tank. With so many people unemployed or working from home, few cars fill the streets and highways; wildlife has been observed venturing out more widely than before, too. Those who walk their dogs or exercise do seem to follow the social distancing guidance, having to leave the sidewalk to create distance from oncoming people. Families, friends, book clubs, churches and their small groups, as well as businesses have been using some of the video meeting services to communicate by way of home Internet connections or using cellphone data services. Zoom Meetings have been particularly used a lot for their "one click" ease of use: 40 minute session free, or one person can pay the monthly $15 to obtain "host" credentials (up to 100 simultaneous users and 24 hours of uninterrupted connection per session). Food stores and perhaps other retail operations have installed plexiglass barriers to separate the breath of cashier from customer. Curbside pick-up of recycling and yard trimmings (official yard-waste bags) has been suspended, too.

Imagining the steps leading to more and more restrictions eventually going the other way, loosening up as Covid cases decline, it is hard to know precisely how all these precautions will carefully be dismantled. One radio commentator summarizes the "3 T's" as (1) testing, (2) tracing any flare-ups, (3) treatment that is effective and proven. Only when that infrastructure is in place can the free movement of people and their exhaled water droplets resume; not just in the orbit of the local economy, but also to go longer distances and between countries, too. The whole thing in the aggregate will be uneven, since hotspots differ from the areas most lightly affected. That is true within a particular nation-state, but also globally, with some societies better organized and supplied and informed than others. So long as the virus has a reservoir to reproduce, the risk of pandemic will always be on the horizon. The disruption to the status quo of transporting capital, ideas, people, raw resources and value-added products could lead to new ways of regionalizing or evaluating the things capable of conveying viruses. Recession or sustained recession that results in shrinking the economic pie (depression) may be another multi-faceted legacy of these months now.