Fix 3.9 and 3.10 workflow failures.

**Describe the bug**
Currently the GitHub workflows are failing on a number of errors related to 3.9 compatibility and some other basic oversights.

**To Reproduce**
Create a new PR and tests will fail.

**Expected behavior**
Tests on a new PR off of the main branch should pass unless the new code is causing the issues.

**Additional context**
I'm fixing this in my PR #161 
