As is my dedicated custom, I plan to write late this evening what's called a "live column" on the election.
The goal is to get it transmitted by, oh, maybe they'll give me until 11 p.m., so that it will be published Wednesday morning.
It helps that my Wednesday columns aren't on the pre-made Voices page but are the formerly online-only ones that now get their own separate iPad page.
If I want to make the presidential race this evening's topic, I might try to get ahead of the game and take a shot at a draft. So, let's do that. Pretend you're reading this Wednesday morning:
"It's 11 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. Do you know who your next president is?
"You know that your current president, the preposterous second-place and Russian-endorsed one, just came out and declared victory on the basis that he apparently had won Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, and was ahead in far-from-complete returns in Pennsylvania.
"He apparently now intends to get his personally assembled U.S. Supreme Court to make that premature declaration hold up by somehow discounting the 2.3 million mail votes in Pennsylvania, most still to be counted and two-thirds of which were cast by registered Democrats.
"You could do your own math at home.
"Donald Trump is ahead in Pennsylvania's posted election-day returns at this hour by 700,000 votes. But if Joe Biden gets two-thirds of the 2.3 million mail votes not yet posted ... well, let's say Biden will get 1.5 million and Trump 800,000.
"Let's see--700,000 minus 700,000 equals ... uh-oh.
"I just messed around and came up with a tie in the deciding state.
"Sudden-death overtime probably goes to an Indiana woman named Amy Barrett. By any sense of real justice, she shouldn't even be on the U.S. Supreme Court, at least when Merrick Garland isn't.
"Do not--I repeat, do not--take to the streets over that. Gather instead in front of your laptop screens on Sunday morning and pray together for the country in your virtual worship services.
"America is stronger than this aberrant outrage.
"Or at least it used to be.
"We must remain a nation of laws, even if those laws are ultimately decided and applied for the time being by preposterously and unjustly seated people.
"Violence won't fix that. A raging return to decency will.
"One thing looks certain at this hour, again. And, again, it's irrelevant.
"It is that the Democratic presidential candidate will get more votes than the Republican.
"Biden currently leads the nationwide popular vote 49.7 to 47.9, with the rest oddly cast for somebody else. And that first-place margin for Biden in the popular vote will widen because California's votes will pour in over the next few days and stretch it to, oh, 51 to 47.5, something like that.
"And it won't make a darn because people don't select the American president. Open spaces do.
"It might matter only for future episodes of 'Jeopardy.'
"'I'll take preposterous for a thousand, Alex."
"'OK. Here's your question: He served the country as president for eight years though he never finished in first place in popular votes in his races for the office, and, in the second of those elections, got 4.5 million fewer popular votes nationwide than his opponent.'
"'Who is Donald Trump?'
"'That is correct. We also would have accepted, 'Who is that hideous guy with the hair?'"
Let us hope I am wrong.
I'll hope Biden clearly wins Florida and Pennsylvania--though I think Florida is less hoping than dreaming--and Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona as well, securing a sizable electoral margin.
Whatever your preference, surely you also can hope for clarity.
It might be best for me to let the presidential race keep percolating without comment at 11 o'clock this evening, and to write instead exclusively on local races.
Early voting has been so heavy in Pulaski County that we ought to able to discern meaningful trend-
established returns when early-
voting machine tallies are tabulated and dumped shortly after the polls close at 7:30 p.m., perhaps by 8 p.m.
At that early juncture we will know if Joyce Elliott is getting more than 60 percent of heavy Pulaski County voting against French Hill. And we will get a strong idea of how the important races for the reconstituted Little Rock school board will turn out.
If the Pulaski turnout is as massive as predicted, and if Elliott indeed tops 60 percent, she would stand a chance--only that--of holding on as the Republican wave crests in Saline, Faulkner and White counties to give Hill margins perhaps exceeding 75 percent.
I could offer some math speculation on that as well, but I'd just upset myself by winding up in another tie.
So, settle in this evening, and give thanks that you don't have to try to make sense of it by 11 p.m.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.