I confess to considerable anxiety as the clock ticks down to the end of voting in the United States, just one week from today. This isn't just the jitters about whether my preferred candidates will win. I am deeply concerned about this election's impact on the health of the country.

I am anxious about whether the voters will be heard in 2020. How will the pandemic, and the surge of voting by mail, shape the processes of this election? Will voter suppression be a bigger factor than usual in this COVID year? Will the desires of the voters be accurately represented in the count of the ballots, or will substantial numbers of those ballots be disqualified, often on trivial grounds?

I am anxious, too, about what will happen in the hours, and days, and weeks after the election. Mr. Trump has never promised that he'll accept the election results if he doesn't win, and he's spent months asserting (without evidence) that voting by mail is "rigged" and ripe for fraud. Trump has offered thinly-veiled encouragement to his followers to engage in violence and turmoil if the election doesn't go his way. A peaceful transition of power is a hallmark of the US constitutional system, and there is a good chance that such a transition will not come easily after this election.

I'm anxious, and that could be paralyzing. (Not just "could be" -- I do feel that paralysis far too often.) The antidote to paralysis is a plan for action for the coming weeks, and a commitment to active engagement in the community. What can make a difference in these tumultuous days, and how can we be involved?

After a brief ethical grounding, I'll offer some thoughts and suggestions about the days until the polls close, about election night, and about the days which follow after November 3.

This is a longer and more detailed essay than I've usually written. There are well-marked sections below if you want to skim through some parts. If you want to take a deep breath and gather your thoughts, you might do so at the beginning of the "After the Election" section. That's more than half way through. At that point the commentary shifts gears into a deeper urgency, because it is after the election when the United States faces the greatest danger.

The academic ethicists who have cultivated an "eco-justice" school of thought have identified four core ethical norms to guide that perspective: solidarity, sustainability, sufficiency and participation. The last one, sometimes stated as "democracy," is the one at the heart of my thinking this season.

Participation says that all stakeholders in a decision, or all citizens of a country, should be able to participate in the decisions that affect them. Elected officials should listen to, and take seriously, the opinions of their constituents, and not be beholden only to their donors. Freedom of speech is an aspect of participation, whether it is in published statements, social media posts, or protest marches. The norm of participation places high value on elections, on the ability of all qualified voters to take part in the voting process, and on the necessity of having those votes tabulated.

There are lots of controversial political issues at stake in the election of 2020. As a foundation underneath those decisions about policies and candidates, the validity of the election process is uniquely at stake this year. Will the way we work through this election season honor the right of all citizens to participate in shaping the future of our country?

As a citizen of the US, I treasure the constitutional principles and the long traditions which have grounded, and then expanded, the right to vote. As one steeped in eco-justice ethics, I am committed to the ethical necessity of participation. In the coming days, I hope that we, as a nation, can hold onto those sorts of deep principles. This isn't just about which side will win. This is about the values and standards that will shape and guide our country.

BEFORE THE ELECTION:
It would be wonderful if diligent efforts were being made in every state and county to be sure that every voter has a convenient, reliable and safe way to cast their ballot. That's not the case. (I am privileged to live in Colorado, where the well-established vote-by-mail system is inclusive, secure, and remarkably easy. It can be done!)

The barriers to voting take at least three well-known forms -- suppression, intimidation, and fraud. While it is too late in the election process this year to overcome all these barriers, there are ways to minimize some of the impacts.

Suppression uses a variety of institutional and legal actions to reduce voter turn-out. In the most explicit form, some states bar anyone with a felony conviction from ever being able to vote, and disproportionately those who have a conviction on their record are people of color and poor.

It is suppression when states put extreme restrictions on the ability to have an absentee or mail ballot, or when there are few options provided for early voting. It is suppression when states impose excessively strict voter ID requirements. It is suppression when voter registration requires a voter's street address, when on many Indian reservations most residences do not have any such address assigned. It is suppression when polling places are disproportionately located in affluent and white neighborhoods, and limited for the poor and people of color, or when some polling places are understaffed with poor social distancing, leading to long lines and unsafe conditions. It is suppression when the governor of Texas, for example, mandates that each county may have only one location where citizens can drop off their ballots.

If suppression is an issue where you live, please support efforts that will help folk get their ballots filled out and turned in. Give people rides to polling places, or make donations to the churches and agencies who are providing those services. If "ballot harvesting" is legal in your state (picking up ballots from voters, and delivering them to drop boxes), volunteer to collect ballots in key neighborhoods. Visit stressed voting sites where the lines are long, and offer water or snacks, or just say "Thank you for voting! Stick it out!" (If you go to a polling place, wear a mask, and make sure that any gifts are not seen as electioneering for a particular candidate.) And if suppression is a problem near you, document where it is happening, and make an outcry about this violation of citizenship rights.

Intimidation is a particular form of suppression. It makes the process of voting frightening or dangerous for some classes of people. In communities with a history of tense police relationships, political parties have been known to hire off-duty cops, in uniform, to stand at the entrance to a polling place. A recent news report said: "On the second day of early voting in Virginia, Trump supporters gathered at a polling place in Fairfax with flags and signs, chanting 'Four more years!' as locals attempted to cast their ballots." Especially in Democratic-leaning areas, this creates a hostile environment for voters and intimidates citizens from casting their ballots at all.

Blatant intimidation can be reported to election officials, police, and the media. It should also be reported to 1-866-OUR VOTE (1-866-687-8683), the national Election Protection initiative. In addition to rapid action networks to respond to voter intimidation, OUR VOTE has information on voting laws in each state, and has volunteer opportunities for individuals who want to take part in non-partisan poll monitoring to support inclusive election participation.

Fraud happens very rarely with people voting twice, or voting without being properly registered, despite the frequent claims of Mr. Trump. Election fraud does happen frequently when lies keep people from voting. I've heard for years of official-looking mailings being sent with a message like, "To reduce crowding at polling places this year, polls are open to Republicans on Tuesday, and Democrats on Wednesday" -- meaning that the Democrats who are taken in by the fraud never get to vote. These sorts of false or misleading messages have been spread widely by social media in the past; the companies have promised to be more diligent in blocking false or misleading posts.

This fall, in California, the Republican party has placed numerous official-looking and totally unauthorized "ballot drop boxes" in some communities, with no assurance that all of the ballots will ever be delivered to election officials. A lawyer for the Republican party claims that this is legitimate "ballot harvesting," but state officials are investigating charges of election fraud and ballot tampering.

You can help to prevent fraud by being a diligent watchdog on social media and in your neighborhood, calling out fake information, and being an advocate for trusted sources of voter information.

ELECTION NIGHT:
In recent years, we've come to expect that the outcome of an election -- local, state or national -- will be fairly clear within a few hours of the closing of the polls. That won't happen this year. It may be many days before we have reasonably definitive word on who wins in many key races.

Because of the pandemic, and in the face of expected suppression or intimidation at polling places, voting by mail is at record levels all across the country. This will slow down the counting of some votes. It is far more time-consuming for election workers to receive and process a mail ballot than it is for in-person voting. Checking signatures and other verification on each ballot is slow and complicated -- and those are the steps which are essential to making vote-by-mail secure. These are steps that cannot be rushed.

Some states allow mailed ballots to be processed as they are received (Florida and Colorado are two), but others have laws which prohibit any validation or counting until election day. I've heard about this most often in the case of Pennsylvania, the ultimate "swing state" for this year's presidential race.

This has implications that go far beyond satisfying our curiosity or anxiety about who wins. Consider the case of Pennsylvania, where it is likely that in-person voting will lean Republican, and mail ballots will lean Democratic. The polls close at 8 PM, and counting proceeds quickly on the votes from polling places, but the count of mail ballots is going slowly. The results that start to come out for the 10:00 news show a strong Republican slant -- what some experts call a "red mirage" because it doesn't represent the votes that will be reported in coming days.

So what? If that potential "red mirage" in Pennsylvania is given credibility on election night, it may well distort the perceived legitimacy of the entire election. Just this morning (10/27/20), the Guardian reported on Mr. Trump's comments to the press.

Trump falsely said that it was against the law to count ballots after Election Day, even though tabulating every valid vote is necessary and is often a days-long process. ... [T]he president said it would be "very proper and very nice if a winner were declared" on the night of the election.

If Mr. Trump claims victory on election night, based in large part on preliminary and incomplete counts, then Trump and many of his followers have given themselves the basis for a claim that the subsequent and more complete results are fraudulent. Establishing that claim would be the first step in a bitter fight over the validity of the election. If the public can be convinced that no clear results can be expected on election night, a lot of misunderstanding and conflict can be avoided.

This year, especially, the media must be extremely careful about describing what votes have been counted, and which results are reasonably complete. They must refrain from the temptation to call an election too soon, based on skewed information. There's some indication that major media outlets will be careful and responsible. Major social media platforms, too, are establishing policies that will keep rumors and false results from spreading too far.

All of us have to be committed to waiting for solid election results. We need to make it clear to family, friends, neighbors and co-workers that nothing will be known for sure on election night. We need to speak up, in person and on-line, to squash rumors or any early claims of victory or defeat.

AFTER THE ELECTION:
There will be bitter fights about many aspects of this election, and they will play out for weeks after November 3.

In a long and distressing article in The Atlantic, "The Election That Could Break America," Barton Gellman wrote:

Let's not hedge about one thing. Donald Trump may win or lose, but he will never concede. ... If compelled in the end to vacate his office, Trump will insist from exile, as long as he draws breath, that the contest was rigged.

Gellman's article spells out some of the legal challenges that we might expect in the month after the election. Many of them will deal with technicalities about mail ballots. Those challenges have to be resolved by December 8, when the members of the Electoral College are formally appointed.

If you remember the long and turbulent month of November, 2000, when "hanging chads" and other technical issues were adjudicated in Florida, you have some sense of what might be in store this year. This year, though, those disputes will be underway in several states and in an even more divisive mood.

Some legal challenges are found in every election, and they can be totally appropriate. What are the reasons for accepting or rejecting a provisional ballot? Did a county follow reasonable procedures for signature matching on mail-in ballots? Were voters given an opportunity to "cure" a ballot that had verification issues, like a missing signature? At an appropriate scale, these challenges are part of a strong and vibrant democracy.

The danger comes if a flood of legal challenges is launched with the intention of cancelling legitimate votes, and distorting the results of the election. Gellman suggests -- drawing on a Republican memo from this year's primary elections -- that a motion might be filed, in the states that can't count mail-in ballots until election day, that "someone connected with the party review each application and each mail ballot envelope." Such an expansive challenge of millions of ballots goes beyond election security, and becomes an avenue of voter suppression.

What's to be done in this sort of situation? Again, it calls for patience, and a willingness to wait for the process to play out. Beyond that, though, if legal challenges are causing the widespread rejection of ballots, there will be a need for large and well-funded legal action to defend the ballots. We may be called upon by election advocates to make substantial donations in support of those efforts. And we'll need to be vocal about how to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate forms of legal challenges. It will be harder to undermine or overturn valid election results if there is close public scrutiny and loud public outcry.

November will be a long and painful month. But the kickoff to that month, in the first couple of days after the election, will be especially important. We won't have complete or defining results in those early days, but we will have strong indicators of whether the results are likely to be decisive, and about how vehemently those results will be challenged (or just flat-out denied).

On November 4 or 5 or 6, if it becomes clear that the honest results of this year's election are being suppressed or refuted, the American public needs to be prepared to resist and reject such a coup. That's a remarkable statement to make in this country, but it is a possibility which has to be considered. Guardian commentator Ashley Dawson wrote a week ago:

Donald Trump has told us openly that he is planning to steal the election. In recent months he has explicitly declared that any election in which he does not win will have been rigged and illegitimate. He has claimed repeatedly and against all evidence that mail-in ballots are invalid. ... And, most notoriously, Trump has ominously encouraged neo-fascist goons like the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by".

If massive protests are necessary, they need to be carefully and strategically organized. That planning, thankfully, is well underway, on many fronts.

I strongly encourage you to look into "Protect the Results" -- a joint project of Indivisible and Stand Up America, with a long list of important partners, working to protect the valid results of the 2020 election. With organizers in communities across the country, they have provisional plans for big public events in almost 400 locations, if those are needed. Please visit their website, read their analysis of why such planning is necessary, and consider signing up for an event near you -- or look at other ways of being involved in this urgent movement.

Starting right now, we need to build awareness of the dangerous days ahead. We need to know what plans are being made powerfully and resoundingly to counter any attempt to overturn the election results. Just joining in that planning is an act of resistance. According to the civil rights activist George Lakey, planning to defeat a coup can actually help reduce the chances of attempts to overthrow democracy.

I have created an animated graphic, sized for posting to Facebook, which calls us to that resistance, and which expresses (I hope) the core message of Protect the Results. In a rotating set of three images, it names things that have to happen after the polls close Nov. 3:

• Every candidate must WAIT for all the votes to be received and counted.
• We must all RESIST any attempts to short-circuit Democracy.
• We must all STAND for the constitution and the rights of the people.

The graphic then points to the ProtectTheResults website for more information and action strategies.

You can see and download the graphic at my new website. (Or email me if you want a copy sent directly to you.) I encourage you to post the graphic very soon to social media with a message of personal commitment if you can. You might include the hashtags #ProtectTheResults or #CountEveryVote.

Protect the Results is focusing on short term protests, launched quickly as the need arises. I assume they'll also be planning and organizing for ongoing actions, because one big day of crowds on the streets isn't enough to stop a concerted effort to overturn American democracy.

Columnist David Brooks, in an early September New York Times column, "What Will You Do if Trump Doesn't Leave?" wrote:

If Trump claims a victory that is not rightly his, a few marches in the streets will not be an adequate response. There may have to be a sustained campaign of civic action, as in Hong Kong and Belarus, to rally the majority that wants to preserve democracy, that isolates those who would undo it.

Brooks points to two themes that would have to be featured in such ongoing civic action: ardent patriotism, and preservation of constitutional order. We would have to be absolutely clear that we're marching and striking to preserve the nation in the face of unprecedented threats.

In a Protect the Results training session a few days ago, the head of Greenpeace USA, Annie Leonard, spoke about a "documentary moment." If you watch a historical documentary, about fighting the Nazis, or the civil rights struggle, you might find yourself wondering, "what would I have done in a time like that?" This, she said, may be our documentary moment, that profound historic occasion that calls each of us to make the bold choices about what we value, and where we place our deepest commitments. We can't sit this one out.

Well, this has been a long and challenging reflection. These are frightening and demanding times, and we need to know what we're facing. We need to think now about how we might act in the next couple of days and weeks.

People of faith might recognize this as a "Kairos moment," an opportunity for profound prayer and meditation, and an occasion for extraordinary -- perhaps even sacrificial -- action.

I've offered suggestions from the very simple (donate to help churches that are driving members to the polls) to the very hard (commit to street protests, perhaps including civil disobedience and arrest). There are many options in between.

All of us, starting right now, though, need to talk frequently and personally about what might be ahead of us. As often as possible, and with as wide a community as we can muster, we need to name the active attempts at voter suppression or voter intimidation, and we need to explain to our friends the ways in which this election could be compromised. Talking and writing about these possibilities will keep us from being surprised or paralyzed when bad things happen. It will clarify our values and intentions. And a passionate public debate through the coming week can actually stave off dangers that might happen if we're not prepared.

Yes, I'm profoundly anxious about the election, and I refuse to be passive in that anxiety. I'm going to continue to study. I will be persistent in announcing what I see happening. And I commit myself to appropriate action in the coming days.

Please, recognize your own anxieties, and be motivated by them. Don't be overwhelmed by the stress and the uncertainty -- breathe, then act, always act. Recognize the dangers that our nation may face in the closing months of this already unprecedented year, and commit to speaking and acting as you can.

P.S. -- The danger of a dramatic coup is not limited to days after the election. Atlantic writer Gellman also talks about frightening possibilities just before and on election day -- for example if the president declared a state of emergency, closed down streets around polling places, and seized ballots from post offices. These are unlikely, I hope, but he writes, "With Trump we must ask: What might a ruthless incumbent do that has never been tried before?" If you sign up for one of the Protect the Results events, you'll be on the mailing list for emergency response on or before election day.