Image Credit: CNN

By Jill Sperling

US ELECTION

American citizens living in Kamloops keeping close eye on tight election

Nov 4, 2020 | 4:39 PM

KAMLOOPS — It was a nail-biting election night in the United States Tuesday (Nov. 3) and the count is not yet finished.

Prior to election night, polls indicated former Vice President Joe Biden would win the presidency by a large margin, but if the 2016 taught us anything, it’s that polls do not decide the election.

It has been a much tighter race than predicted.

Lesra Martin was hoping for a landslide victory for Biden, but was expecting the tight race.

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“At the end of the day, anybody can still win this election and so I think we just have to be patient and wait and see,” he said.

Martin, an American citizen residing in Kamloops, cast his vote for Biden in the state of New York. Unsurprisingly, the Democratic candidate was declared the winner in that state. Martin says he was somewhat surprised by President Trump’s early claim of victory.

“It’s curious that he decided to do that before he reached the electoral count of 270, which is the law. Is that somewhat surprising? Yes, but he did warn us that it was going to happen. This is a tough one, this is a nail-biter.”

Henry Small is registered to vote in Florida, but his ballot was not sent to his Canadian address. Nevertheless, he hopes whoever wins the election can attempt to bring unity to a divided nation.

“It’s supposed to be government for the people,” Small said. “Hopefully whoever gets in, it will go back to that somewhat, government for the people. I’m trying to be positive about the whole situation. Hopefully the constitution and democracy goes on.”

President Trump has already challenged voting procedures in some battleground states.

“The problem that the Trump administration is going to have is it’s going to have difficulty if it’s deciding to fight all of these results,” said TRU Faculty of Law lecturer Jeffrey Meyers, “because, it won’t be able to use the same legal arguments and the same legal grounds and in some way it might be contradicting itself… if it’s just wild-eyed focus on stopping the count for any reason whatsoever, that’s a pretty uphill battle. In one case you want the ballots counted, in another case you don’t want the ballots counted.”

As of late Wednesday afternoon, neither candidate has been declared the winner and there are still many votes to be counted. “At the end of the day, this is what voting is all about,” Martin said.

“Every vote should be counted and every vote should matter.”