Respect the vote, Respect the Results

Editor's Note: I wrote and published this piece last year on a different social media site. I reposted it again there, but thought I would share it here, as well.

I spent most of my adult life in and around government and politics.

I was selected to attend North Dakota Boys State when I was a teenager, attended my first precinct caucus with my mom, organized as a student at St. Cloud State University and ended my career in government as Chief of Staff to United States Senator Norm Coleman.

I’ve run so many political campaigns in my life I have lost count of them.

I lost my fair share of campaigns, but also won my fair share, as well.

From the start of my life in government and politics to the time I chose to actively end my participation in it, I have always believed in the power of democracy to make life better for all Americans.

America has done more to lift more human beings out of poverty, repression, oppression and hopelessness than any nation in history.

We are by no means a perfect nation.

There remains far too many poor, too much inequity and inequality, too much injustice for a nation founded on the principles that every human being is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We have stumbled along the way in our nation’s history by treating far too many of our fellow citizens like second-class citizens or, worse yet, not like human beings at all.

And, yet, despite these unmistakable flaws, we remain a nation that is more capable than any in the world to look inward and realize that we have work to do.

Not just because we should, but because we can, and from the beginning of our nation’s creation we have strived to be a better America.

Tomorrow is Election Day. Already more than 90 million Americans have voted – nearly 2/3 the total number of Americans who voted in 2016.

My family will go, together, tomorrow morning and cast our votes at our local polling location.

This fundamental exercise of our freedom of democracy guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution is one of the most important things we do as Americans.

But, it is not the only one.

Perhaps not even the most important one.

Casting a vote is an expression of your belief in the future of your country.

Who you vote for, or against, and why you do is as complex as the nation we live in today.

There is no guarantee that your choice for public office will win.

There never has been.

Still, in election after election, despite how seemingly divided the nation was when the election was over and the winner was declared the loser conceded and America’s democracy endured.

Millions of Americans voted for someone other than Donald Trump in 2016.

After he was declared the winner millions took to the streets who opposed the outcome of the election and yet when the tumult died down democracy endured.

In 2020 we are already being bombarded with stories of looming civil unrest regardless of who wins this year’s presidential election.

An election, by the way, that may well not be decided at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, November 4th.

A reality that is not shocking or surprising or unprecedented in America.

My choice for public office is my choice.

Yet, if my choice for public office does not prevail my hope for democracy will not be dashed upon the rocks.

On the contrary. I will accept the results, and continue to focus on what my role is in America’s democracy to do my part to make America a better place for everyone.

That is the most important part of democracy in America.

It is the acceptance of the outcome of elections and the coming together of our country to move the nation forward.

We live in an era in which far too much of our lives is consumed by politics and, in particular, the politics of Washington, D.C.

It has become crass entertainment with the participants becoming ever more willing to say and do whatever it will take to claim some kind of advantage over their opponents.

What goes on in Washington, D.C. has far less to do with the future of America than what goes on in our hearts and minds throughout America.

The idea that anybody who votes for Joe Biden is no friend of mine or anybody who votes for Donald Trump is no friend of mine is something I simply cannot get my head around.

Neither of them has greater control over the future of Americans than all of us do individually as Americans.

How we treat one another, and our communities, after the results of the election are known, will say more about each of us individually than it will about any candidate for President or any other office in America.

That we vote, at all, is one of the most important exercises of American democracy.

That we accept the results of the votes of others is far more important in respecting the power of American democracy.