Election 2020: Cookies, QAnon, a dog and a drag queen make for a weird end to the election – York Daily Record
As the 2020 presidential election careens to the finish line – the image of a clown car veering into a ditch comes to mind – the eyes of the nation have been focused on Pennsylvania, looking to the Keystone State for guidance and hints to where this country may be heading for the next four years.
Pennsylvania, it has been said, holds the key to the election. As anyone who knows the commonwealth, the state could be counted upon to take on this responsibility with the gravitas and sober reflection that such a weighty decision requires.
But this is Pennsylvania.
And the commonwealth knows how to get weird. So it comes as no surprise on election day that Pennsylvania showed its weird side to the rest of the nation. (This is, after all, a state that has adopted as its official amphibian a critter called a “snot otter.”)
Election day across the great state of Pennsylvania featured polls dependent on cookies, a turnout of voters dedicated to the bizarre fantasies spun by the conspiracy theory peddled by QAnon, someone who suggested that he was going to let his pit bull cast his ballot and a drag queen working as a journalist.
Pennsylvania is, of course, touted as the home state of Democratic candidate Joe Biden, living the first 10 years of his life in Scranton. It is very much like Pennsylvania to claim a man who spent 67 of the 77 years he has been on this planet and served as a senator from Delaware for 36 years, as one of its own.
On election day, and even before, Biden’s childhood home in Scranton, a modest house on Washington Avenue, has become something of a tourist attraction.
More:Purple haze Pa.: Why the Keystone State is always a presidential battleground
Biden signed the wall in the attic at one point and the current owners of the house often show visitors the former vice president’s autograph on a wall in the attic.
Biden stopped by the house on election day, and the family who lives there now asked him to sign the wall in a more accessible place. It was a hassle to guide sightseers to the attic and it would be more convenient to have his signature on a first-floor wall.
So the owner took down his sister’s wedding photo and asked Biden to sign the wall. He hesitated, but then acquiesced to the request, inscribing the wall with “From this house to the White House, by God’s grace.”
Cookies are reliable polls, or not
Pennsylvania is also the snack food capital of the world, so it comes as no surprise that cookies play a role in the political process. Since 2008, Lochel’s Bakery in the Philadelphia suburb of Hatboro has baked cookies representing the two presidential candidates, the sales of the cookies serving as a poll to predict the outcome in the election.
It’s a basic sugar cookie decorated with sprinkles and the candidates’ names — blue for Democrat and red for the GOP. In the three previous elections, the candidate with the highest cookie sales ended up winning the White House, according to owner Kathleen Lochel.
Lochel’s has Biden way behind, with 5,114 cookies sold compared to 27,900 for Trump.
QAnon goes to the polls
Perhaps you’ve heard about QAnon.
Not long ago, it was a very bizarre conspiracy theory lurking in the dark corners of the Internet. It is a far-right-wing conspiracy theory that alleges that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile celebrities and Democrats is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and asserts that Trump is battling against those forces.
The New York Times reported, “For months, QAnon supporters have been flooding social media with false information about Covid-19, the Black Lives Matter protests and the 2020 election. QAnon supporters have also been trying to attach themselves to other activist causes, such as the anti-vaccine and anti-child-trafficking movements, in an effort to expand their ranks.”
Of course, QAnon has its supporters in Pennsylvania.
Dianne Rodriquez, 29, said, as she cast her ballot in Lebanon County, she has “done lot of research since I was younger on how celebrities present themselves. If you go on Twitter and look past mainstream media you can see that stuff.”
She said, “The thing that bothers me the most are the celebrities, what has been going on with the children in Hollywood. That’s what’s really important are the children.”
She said, “I believe in QAnon and I support what they stand for.”
More:Trump men vs. Biden women: Which voting group in Pa. will pick the next president?
Wait, dogs can vote?
From that, meet Calliope.
Calliope is an American pit bull terrier, her owner emphasizing “American,” and she showed up with her own, wearing pink beads and a gold sweater in Pittsburgh to cast her ballot.
OK, her owner, a business owner named Robert Schuster, was casting the ballot, but he said, “She’s exercising her animal rights.”
Drag queen journalist
Also making a fashion statement at the polls was Pissi Myles, a drag queen decked out in a red wig, a star-spangled dress and a face shield.
Myles interviewed voters outside the Scranton Cultural Center for the live-streaming news platform Happs News.
She dressed for fashion, not the weather. “I’m freezing every inch of this skin off,” she said, standing in the morning chill.
More:Wolf responds to Trump hours before Election Day: ‘Pennsylvanians will not be intimidated’
Only in Pennsylvania
And now for two things that, perhaps, could only happen in Pennsylvania.
Some voters who showed up to vote at Samuel Everitt Elementary School in Middletown in suburban Bucks County stood in line for an hour, only to learn that they were at the wrong polling place.
They were redirected to the correct polling place, where they had to endure another hour-long wait in line, on the other side of the building.
It was much easier for Les Korbett to vote.
All he had to do was climb out of bed and walk down a flight of stairs to the garage of his home in Pittsburgh’s working-class South Hills neighborhood.
That’s his polling place. And it has been ever since his parents, in exchange for $100, began renting the garage out to the county election office half a century ago.
He might be the first to cast a ballot, might not.
“It depends on what time I get up,” he said.
Back in the day, he recalled, a campaign worker who would stand outside the garage with a bottle of whiskey.
“He would say, ‘Here, I’ll give you a shot if you’ll vote for my candidate,’” Korbett said. “That was very common.”
One thing is certain – whiskey would make this election seem more normal.
Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a York Daily Record staffer since 1982. USA Today Network reporters Kathryne Rubright, Jo Ciavaglia, Marion Callahan, Kim Strong, Hal Conte and JD Mullane contributed to this story.
*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Google News can be found here ***
