I’ve been voting for over 50 years. Sometimes my preferred candidates have won, sometimes they’ve lost. That’s how it goes in a democracy. Sometimes I’m in the minority of voters, sometimes in the majority. I do my best to support my preferred candidates, but at times I’ve had to take deep breaths and accept that they lost.

I don’t understand people who are sure the only way their candidate can possibly lose is because of fraud. Some candidates even declare months in advance that any loss for them will be fraudulent. What? Have you never been on a sports team that lost a game? Have your favorite professional teams never legitimately lost games? Have you never lost a game of Monopoly? Since when does losing automatically mean the other side cheated? Haven’t you taught your kids to accept loss with good sportsmanship? Do you totally expect society to bend to your every wish every time?

In my experience as a voter and a volunteer ballot clerk, the people who run elections work hard to do everything as perfectly as humanity will allow. Human errors happen, but they get corrected and votes get counted and recounted. Trust them! It would be great for all of us to just say thank you to poll workers for all they do on election day.

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