Election Coverage

I know that the election has been over for almost a week now, but I think it is worth noting a few things from this side of the world. First off, I am so glad that I missed the ads. The constant stream of negative campaign ads, robo-calls, tweets, updates, etc, that I am sure were littering the airways day and night was never pleasant. Second, in my rural village (the one without electricity) nearly everyone was aware of the fact that November 6^th was Election Day in the United States. I spent the day visiting people in the community, and I was astonished at the number of people that asked me about the election. Many asked how I was supposed to vote if I was here in South Africa. A few asked whom I would be voting for. One or two asked how I would find out who won. I explained that many, many months ago I started the process of applying for an overseas absentee ballot so I could exercise my right to vote and that I would use my phone to keep me updated on the status of the election.

The most incredible part, though, happened the next morning. When I woke up, I checked a few news websites to get the latest on the election. At that point, Obama had been declared the winner. When I got to school, almost every teacher asked my how I felt about Obama being re-elected. Good thing I checked! Despite the news being only hours, perhaps even minutes old, it had been announced via a few standard media outlets (TV but most especially radio) that Obama would serve another 4 years as president. Even with all of the technology that I had, I did not have any more knowledge on this particular subject than anyone that I worked with or lived near. I realized that when the news is deemed valuable or important, people will find a way to get the info, with or without all the latest and greatest gadgets.