WITH less than a week to go before the US Presidential election, former Craven resident Graham Jagger has a ring-side seat. He moved to Atlanta, Georgia, four years ago. Here, he tells us what it is like to be living in a key 'swing state'. 

 

ON November 3, 2020, I moved into my house in metro Atlanta, which I had bought nine months earlier while still living in Cononley. It was also the day that the election took place here in the US, putting the then-President Trump out of office and Joe Biden into office as the President of the United States.

I was much more focused on getting the furniture that had come from Cononley into my house and settling into my new home than was what going on here politically at the time. Now four years on, on November 5, that’s the day on which this country will go through the exhausting process again. Here in Georgia, early voting has already started and by the end of the fifth day over 1.3 million or 20 per cent of registered voters had already voted. Early voting begins three weeks before the date of the election and is Monday to Friday and two Saturdays.

The process is different here and while “election day” is Tuesday, November 5 people have the opportunity to vote well in advance of that day because it would be impossible for everyone who wants to, to vote on one single day because of the shear numbers involved plus for work reasons they can’t get time off to vote. Of course, postal voting or “absentee” voting is also available. To vote, you have to produce some form of personal identification which for most people involves a driver's license with photo identification or an ID card issued by your county organisation. There’s no walking in and telling them who you are without proof and being able to vote.

Much is said and made about “illegal immigrants” being able to vote and there’s no evidence that that happened in 2020 based upon the auditing of the results of the last election. You must be a US citizen to vote in federal elections where the role of President is decided. Becoming a US citizen is not a simple process and can take years to achieve and a lot of red tape, documents and interviews. Misinformation about this is rife however.

But we’ve been in “election mode” for months now and it’s fascinating to watch how it all works here. Believe me, it’s nothing like it is in the UK. Despite what you might think, the discussions, debates and party-political process in the UK are all very gentle and respectful compared to the rough and tumble and hate and vitriol that exists here. Two assassination attempts on one of the candidates confirm that.

What is so different is the advertising on television that you just cannot get away from however much you might try. They are not “party political broadcasts” like you get in the UK. We are literally peppered with ads for both candidates relentlessly. You often find that an advert for one immediately follows an advert for the other. Every commercial break, and they are every few minutes here, will have adverts for both candidates.

Some adverts promote a candidate, and others just attack the other candidate. It applies both ways to both candidates. Adverts can be brief, like five seconds or up to about 20 seconds but their impact is immense. The amount of money spent here on political advertising and promotion, of all kinds, by both parties and their candidates is probably equivalent to how much the UK Government spends in a year. It’s phenomenal but it’s just part of the process. The money to do this comes from donations both small and large, and believe me, it involves a lot of money. Rich donors give multi-millions of dollars to the party or person they support. The amounts are often obscene.

Then there are all the rallies each candidate holds across the whole of the country often doing three a day and flying from location to location, city to city, State to State. There’s nothing “environmentally friendly” about what’s involved with the election process here. They rack up the air miles and roadblocks and motorcades precede them. Recently, both candidates have been here in metro Atlanta only a few miles from where I live.

Thousands of people attend these rallies, and the venues are carefully chosen to accommodate huge crowds of fervent supporters waving their signs and wearing their just purchased merchandise. Often, people begin queuing for hours before the doors open and need to leave before the event is due to finish because in one particular case, the candidate is frequently late to arrive and rambles on incoherently for ages.

Then there are the television interviews and “Town Halls” with an invited selected audience. It goes on and on relentlessly until you just can’t absorb any more. It’s mind-numbing in the end and you become unable to differentiate between the truth and the lies. In all my time in the UK and the many elections I’ve experienced there, this here is nothing like it. But the funny thing for me at least is that the upcoming election takes place on November 5 which of course to us British people, has a different significance in terms of its relevance in history. I tell people here what the date means to us and what Guy Fawkes, a Yorkshire man in fact, tried to do on that date in 1605.

The attempted assassination of King James and his parliament has its comparisons with what was attempted on January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol when supporters of the then-former President attacked the building to try to stop the certification of the result of the election and the transfer of power to the newly elected President.

Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators were tried and found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. To date, that hasn’t happened here yet with those involved in the “insurrection” but so far, over 1500 have been tried and found guilty of a range of offences that they committed on that day and over 800 have faced some jail time.

I sincerely hope that what I see here is never replicated in my homeland. It’s only a matter of days now before we know who the next President will be, but a lot is still to happen before then.