A Los Angeles-based ABC TV crew came here to report on Clallam County’s role as the nation’s only remaining bellwether voting for the winner in every presidential election since 1980.
But bellwether is not the weather, wind, rain.
It took effort to convince people to mail or drop their ballots in a drop box in record numbers, 86 percent during a pandemic.
So congratulations to everyone who made it happen, our election officials like Shoona Riggs, a Republican, who oversaw ballot delivery and counting without a single complaint of fraud.
Congratulations to participants in get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts.
We stood at the main intersections in Sequim and Port Angeles week after week holding Biden-Harris signs.
It lifted our spirits when drivers honked and passengers gave us thumbs-up salutes.
In Sequim, we joined Neil Morris, who sat every day on a lawn chair with his “BLM” and “=” signs.
Many of us joined the Black Lives Matter protest against the police killing of George Floyd, unmoved even when vigilantes showed up.
We joined the March for Ruth in Port Angeles when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.
Republicans, too, had GOTV.
Unlike 2016, Democrats prevailed.
The struggle is not over.
Trump refuses to concede to Biden even though Biden won in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and even in deep red Georgia.
This election was a victory for race and gender equality, science, health care for all, an economy that benefits working people and a cool, living planet.
Give thanks if we win these.
Tim Wheeler
Sequim
Acting chair of Voices for Health and Healing