What to expect on Election Night? Nothing! Why it’s best to have no expectations at all

“It is a cap­i­tal mis­take to the­o­rize before one has data. Insen­si­bly one begins to twist facts to suit the­o­ries, instead of the­o­ries to suit facts.”

– Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sher­lock Holmes (A Scan­dal In Bohemia)

Tomor­row evening is Elec­tion Night 2018, the zenith of the 2018 midterm elec­tion cycle. The cycle does­n’t tru­ly end until all the bal­lots are count­ed and the results are cer­ti­fied, so it’s a mis­take to char­ac­ter­ize tomor­row as the end or the finale of a gru­el­ing elec­tion — it’s real­ly the begin­ning of the end as opposed to the end.

The mass media, impa­tient for data to breath­less­ly report, is spec­u­lat­ing (as usu­al) about what tomor­row night’s results could look like. This, in my view, is a very coun­ter­pro­duc­tive exer­cise, par­tic­u­lar­ly after the events of Novem­ber 9th, 2016.

I salute every pun­dit out there who has coura­geous­ly refused to offer or make a pre­dic­tion about the results when prompt­ed by a tele­vi­sion anchor or radio host.

Here is the truth: no one knows what is going to hap­pen tomor­row.

No strate­gist, no can­di­date, no prog­nos­ti­ca­tor, and no poll­ster can see into the future. Any­one who claims to be a seer or a know­er of events yet to tran­spire is not to be trust­ed, peri­od. And pub­lic opin­ion sur­veys, while unques­tion­ably use­ful, only give us an idea of where the elec­torate might be, not what will hap­pen when an elec­tion is actu­al­ly held. We have no defin­i­tive data until results start rolling in, and it is sim­ply not a good idea to the­o­rize before data is available.

Right now, we can draw some con­clu­sions about turnout because we have defin­i­tive data from an elec­tion in progress. We know how many bal­lots have been returned in states like Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon, for exam­ple, because coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials are reg­u­lar­ly report­ing those sta­tis­tics. What we don’t have is data telling us how many vot­ers vot­ed for which can­di­dates. That will become avail­able start­ing tomor­row. Until we’ve got it, we’re all best served by hav­ing no expec­ta­tions at all.

This is eas­i­er said than done, of course. We humans don’t like uncer­tain­ty; in fact, bad news has been demon­strat­ed in research stud­ies to be more palat­able than uncer­tain­ty. But try­ing to fill the void of uncer­tain­ty with expec­ta­tions is just not a good idea. It won’t move our coun­try for­ward and it won’t make you feel better.

If you do not have to work at a day job tomor­row or can afford to take the day off, pick a cam­paign that you want to help and donate your time to that campaign.

Instead of watch­ing cable news, obses­sive­ly check­ing Nate Sil­ver’s blog on FiveThir­tyEight, and scrolling through your news feed on Face­book, try get­ting a good night’s sleep and reserv­ing your wak­ing hours for pro­duc­tive activities.

For exam­ple:

1. Eat­ing a healthy break­fast (and grab­bing lunch when mid­day rolls around)
2. Med­i­tat­ing for at least a few min­utes (put all screens out of reach!)
3. Going for a walk, bike ride, or swim to get your blood circulating
4. Con­tact­ing vot­ers to ask if they vot­ed (by phonebank­ing, tex­ting, etc.)
5. Sign wav­ing with a campaign
6. Pro­vid­ing rides to the polls or bring­ing a friend’s bal­lot to a drop box
7. Help­ing peo­ple who are wait­ing in line to vote (if you’re not in the NW)

Notice these sug­gest­ed activ­i­ties have two themes: (1) Self care and (2) GOTV.

Give your­self time to think and to do use­ful work that you want to do. Rec­og­nize any feel­ings of anx­i­ety, but don’t stew over those feel­ings. Own your time.

Don’t wor­ry about Elec­tion Night — it’ll arrive soon enough. Take deep breaths, focus on work that will make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence, and do that work.

Again, own your time. You don’t want to wake up on Novem­ber 7th wish­ing you had done more for a cam­paign you care about. Face­book and Insta­gram can wait. The Inter­net will still be there when you’re done get­ting out the vote and tak­ing care of your­self. Cable news and sites like FiveThir­tyEight can spare your atten­tion dur­ing these crit­i­cal hours before the polls/drop box­es close.

If you walk your precinct and check up on your neigh­bors by going to their doors, you can do sug­ges­tions #3 and #4 simultaneously.

Remem­ber, the true activist is a doer, not an observ­er. Our democ­ra­cy is at stake in this elec­tion. Par­tic­i­pate — don’t spec­tate. Get­ting out the vote will coun­ter­act any feel­ings of anx­i­ety you have and leave you feel­ing sat­is­fied instead.