So I said - somethng about elections

As it has developed, I’ve written very little here of late, partly because for whatever reason I’ve found it difficult to compose a piece of any significant depth or length - I guess you could call it some sub-variation of writer’s block - and because as I noted recently, I don’t feel that I’m adding anything of sufficient value around here to justify having a readership. The two are likely connected in some way, but that’s rather more self-analytical that I care to be right now.

Anyway, the point of this is that I thought I’d try to from time to time post some substantive comments I’ve made on others’ posts, not single line or toss-off reactions, but something that makes some kind of point. I’ll date each one and include a heading sufficient, I hope, to provide enough context for the comment to make sense. All such posts will be headlined "So I said."

This may not produce a lot of content and no guaranteed regularity because it depends on how wordy I’ve been elsewhere, but maybe enough to make it worth checking here from time to time. I’ll start with this one and thanks more than I can say for bothering to read.

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November 10, 2025
[SCOTUS will review the question of counting mail-in ballots received after election day]

This is inane. Elections are supposed to be directed and controlled by the individual states, not the federal government - including accepting mail-in ballots postmarked on or before but received after election day.

The only - the only - argument I’ve heard to the contrary is the real reach that the Constitution sets election day, so you can’t count votes cast after it.

But to do that, they have to be arguing that a vote is “cast” when it is counted, not when it’s actually cast. Which runs into two major problems. First, if they want to be consistent, that “one set election day” argument would not only require banning early voting entirely (which, admittedly, is also part of the right-wing agenda), it ignores the fact by previous decisions the votes in question were cast when that envelope was put in the mail. Cast before, not after, not even on, election day.

“Oh yes, but they were still counted after,” they say? Okay, so suppose you vote in person on election day but because of turnout, vote counting isn’t completed by midnight. Must the counting stop and remaining votes be discarded? They would, after all, by the logic of the argument be "counted after election day" and therefore cast too late, so making the very argument self-defeating.

The issue at hand is not when votes are counted but when they are cast. The power of the states to count mail-in ballots postmarked by but received after election day is not in rational question, the arguments to the contrary are flat-out voter suppression, and it's a disgrace - a revealing one, but a disgrace nonetheless - for SCOTUS to even have taken this up.