I was going to write a post compiling the election results from West Conshy but Kevin Tierney over at More Than The Curve beat me to the punch and did a very nice job. If you are interested in the unofficial details you can find them here; in a few days the officials results will be available here.

A few thoughts about our local election here in West Conshy:

  • Quite a few council members took turns working as poll greeters. As a result many voters got a chance to chat with council members in a unofficial, relaxed atmosphere.
  • There was a lot of talk among those of us manning the polls, that last night was the largest turnout in recent borough history. In the back of my mind I was thinking that wasn’t right but I didn’t trust my memory. If you check out the MTTC post, you will see we fell well short of the 2016 turn out.
  • Our polling location is located at St. Gertrude’s Church Hall. St. Gret’s happens to be located on a significant grade. Making it a real challenge for people, with any difficulty walking, to access the polls. Couple that with heavy rains, that make for slippery and muddy conditions, things start to get a bit precarious. As if that isn’t difficult enough, for the last few voting cycles the outside lighting at St. Gert’s has not been working. Those citizens that come to vote after work have to not only trudge up hill and step across slippery muddy grass but they have to do it in partial darkness; lit mainly by a street light across the intersection. This election, we were lucky that our friendly neighborhood constable left his pickup truck running with the headlights on; facing the sidewalk so people had some what better lighting. A number of our citizens intend to lodge another complaint with the Borough (who happen to own St. Gert’s) to get this needless problem addressed.

Below I’ve collected a few choice reactions to the nation’s election results:

I agree quite a bit with author Sarah Hoyt‘s initial reaction –

The dems get two years to hide whatever inky stuff has been going one with the FBI/CIA. After another two years that swamp might be permanent.

Trump is by nature a deal maker. After the first two government shut downs, he’ll meet them halfway. This will wreck our economy and yep his presidency with it. As they did with Bush in 2006, they now have a chance to wreck the economy and have it blamed on the sitting president.

Border security? What border security? Moar Dem voters, citizenship being insignificant.

Seriously, yeah Judges. Not all is lost. But this is bad, very bad. We failed to beat the margin of fraud. Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe Trump won in 16 because they seriously underestimated him.

Yeah, they threw a lot of money at this. But let’s be real, if they can win the House on promises to raise our taxes and throttle our energy production and, oh, yeah, impeach the president that finally got the economy going? We need to up our game, and somehow we need to clean up vote fraud. Which is now infinitely harder to do, since the loons got the power. No, I’m not giving up. But this is a heck of a corner we’ve got ourselves painted into.

The headline of this Dailywire article sums up why putting the House Democrats back in power is a very bad idea (but read the whole item anyway): Here Come The Crazies! Nancy Pelosi As Speaker, Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings In Leadership Roles

The deep divisions in America, fanned furiously by the media, are a big part of what drove the higher than usual turnout.  This Federalist item attempts to explain the underlying cause of the divisions. [In An America This Ignorant, It’s No Wonder We Struggle To Stay Free]

They’re unable to understand what it means to govern ourselves, and they’re unable to understand the meaning of true freedom — that one must be free from government restraints in order to find his purpose and live freely. With the loss of this knowledge, and a culture that leads them astray from that birthright, they predictably become less able to think their own thoughts. Those who have completely lost their compass are more inclined to lose their minds in blind rage. And that is, sadly, where too many Americans are.

All of this gets me to start thinking of next steps, to move forward from the mixed election results. I’ll leave you with the quote from the latest J.J. Sefton post as food for thought:

…All of this rot begins and ends in the schools. If we are to have any chance of even beginning to reverse course, then that is where the battle is going to be. Out of the spotlight, but going on every minute of every day our kids are exposed to the brainwashers from pre-school to post-grad. Something has got to change and that is where it’s got to happen.