Sounds of champagne popping in the streets. “Party in The U.S.A” blasting from speakers. Chants of “This is what democracy looks like.”
Washington D.C — the city where I am living at the moment — erupted with celebration when its residents learned that former Vice President Joe Biden had been elected the 46th president of the United States.
U.S. media announced his projected victory after a week of anticipation, when public attention was split between the main page of the New York Times website and TV news channels as votes were counted.
But as people celebrated, I had a more sober assessment of the elections. As a Ukrainian student studying at Stanford University in California, I understood that these captivating elections and the ensuing celebrations were a result of preparation, high voter turnout and the resilience of the U.S. election systems — qualities Ukraine should strive to imitate.
Elections take work
Even though the U.S. vote seized public attention during that anxiety-filled election week, preparations to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic began in the country months before.
The process started with the presidential primaries, where party members selected their nominees for the November vote. For some voters and many election officials, this became the testing grounds for pandemic voting. In May, I joined the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project, one of the initiatives that researched best practices for safe voting. For half a year, we crafted memos on voting by looking at the structures of primaries, pictures from the polling places and social media strategies. As an international student, the project was one of the few ways I could contribute to the election. But this chance was an improvement from 2016, when my participation consisted of staying up at night to watch the results come in and experiencing utter confusion about the electoral college.
American citizens also had to adjust, with some choosing to vote by mail for the first time. I watched my friends request their mail-in ballots, check the mailbox every day since mid-October and then spend hours researching ballot initiatives. As Ukrainian local elections took place around that time, I would ask my family about the candidates, wishing I could mail in my ballot from D.C. and participate in the vote in Cherkasy, my hometown.
A suspenseful race
With all the ballots mailed in by my friends and pre-election research memos finished, we tuned in to the coverage of the vote on Tuesday. Everyone knew that the election would drag on for over a week or more, but it was still a stressful week full of uncertainty.
Tuesday spilled into Wednesday, with our university creating adjustments for students like extending homework deadlines and cancelling classes. In the online classes that did take place, the conversations would always drift to the election, with professors and students alike resisting the urge to turn up the TV channel in the background or hit refresh on the online electoral maps.
And then at 11:28 a.m. on Saturday, I checked the group chat for my university newspaper and saw the race called, after Biden won electoral votes in Pennsylvania.
Celebration of democracy
Updating my housemates did not take long. Soon we were exchanging confused looks as we heard shouting in the street. It took loud cheers and a surprising number of car honks to realize that the neighbors were celebrating. Our next-door neighbors blasted “Party in The U.S.A.”, cheering us on as we stepped outside and confirmed our suspicions.
As we watched the live streams of the crowds heading to the White House to celebrate the results, our neighborhood demonstrated the same levels of energy. The short walk to the coffee shop seemed like a scene from the musical, with people drinking champagne before noon, coming outside to clap and cheer on passersby (bringing their pots and pans along for sound effects), cars honking and bicyclists raising their fists as if they had just crossed the finish line at the Tour de France.
Events in the downtown amplified the energy even further: Chants audible from blocks away and signs and dance parties helped identify the celebration in front of the fenced-off White House. Close by, in one of the parks, people sat on picnic blankets watching CNN on a big screen, looking for updates about the upcoming speeches from Biden and Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris.
I never saw such excitement about the democratic process. But I hope to see it again, this time in Ukraine. Celebrations should be prefaced by work aimed at increasing the turnout and strengthening the political institutions in the country. For contrast, local Ukrainian elections engaged just 36.88% of eligible voters in late October, while 62% of Americans voiced their preference in November.
Getting rid of the “my vote doesn’t matter” mentality and strengthening the election mechanisms to instill trust in the system should come first. And it is never too early to start the preparations and activist efforts.
The next time Ukrainian elections come around, only hard work can achieve a higher turnout and fewer irregularities. Then, we can have our turn to pop the champagne and turn Independence Square into a place for festivities, celebrating democracy and all of the efforts necessary to sustain it.
Anastasiia Malenko is a student at Stanford University.
