Saturday, November 3, 2018

The Urge To Purge

I voted last week. There were problems. Tater Cat kept stretching out on the Voter's Pamphlet, and I got so caught up trying to figure out one of the ballot measures that I overcooked my oatmeal. Other than that, things went smoothly.  The Voter's Pamphlet came through the mail slot a couple weeks ago and a few days later the ballots shot through too. If I could rig up the mail slot so they'd land in my lap it would be even better.

It takes me a few days to study the ballot, on account of having to attend to the oatmeal and the litter box and whatnot, but I've got plenty of time. And it's a good thing, too. I remember those awful days when we'd trudge through the rain to the polling place and the nice neighbor lady would hand us our ballots and we'd pull the curtains behind us and vote. They were tiny curtains, gave you standard hospital-gown coverage. The ballot always seemed to have a few surprises I wasn't prepared for and that took some time. And then there'd be some initiative that would be described like this:

"The result of a NO vote is to maintain the repeal of the prohibition of the anti-inflammatory annulment revision ban." This kind of thing takes a lot of study. You have to start at the end and work backwards, and you don't always have enough fingers. Filling in the bubble at that point is like snipping the last wire on an explosive device. One wrong move and you might have agreed to donate a kidney to a Republican. It's best done from an easy chair, next to a cat with extra toes.

So I'm certainly glad we switched over to this nice, 100% paper ballot unhackable home voting system. I'm sure the rest of you are satisfied too.

What? You still go to the polls? You stand in line for hours? Sometimes you discover you're not on the rolls anymore? Your chads are still hanging under that curtain? There's no paper trail? You can't vote if your address is a post office box? You need your birth certificate, a note from your mommy, and an 8x10 color glossy? What kind of a stupid system is that?

Well, color me horrified. Except in Georgia, where it would be in my best interest not to color me at all, lest I get purged. There's a nice black woman running for governor there and it even looks like she has a good chance unless something can be done about it. Fortunately, the white dude she's running against is the Secretary of State in charge of elections, so something is.

I do read these comment threads full of Republican apologists. I have to, otherwise I might be able to sleep through the night. So I know what the problem is. There are lots and lots of people out there who can't even be bothered to get a proper driver's license with a photo I.D. to show to the poll people, so they shouldn't be allowed to vote. If you're that lazy, you shouldn't vote.

Uh. The lazy ones don't vote, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Oh! And then there are all those people still on the voting rolls who are technically dead. That's a travesty. Thousands! We must purge the rolls of dead people.

Uh. Dead people vote even less often than lazy people. If you think you see a bunch of raggedy dead people lurching toward the polling booth, they're probably just homeless. They should vote too--they probably have opinions and life experiences that we need to hear about.

In general, Democrats think people who want to vote should be able to vote, whereas Republicans think people who want to vote Republican should be able to vote. Personally, I think felons should be able to vote. Why not? I understand people think voting is a privilege, but isn't it a privilege of citizenship? Are felons not citizens?

Ah. Citizens. There's the real problem: all those immigrants coming in to vote in our elections. They won't call the cops if there's trouble in the neighborhood, lest they be swept into detention on mistaken identity, but they're lining up in droves to cast illegal ballots. It's a risk for sure, so the only possible explanation for this is they're getting paid by George Soros. We already know they'll do anything for a little bit of money. They'll even pick radishes and dismember chickens and stuff. So. Ipso whacko, they're on the take.

Well, clearly, some restrictions are necessary. We can't just have people expressing their democratic wishes willy-nilly. There should be hoops to jump through. Hoops! That's it!

Let's make everybody shoot foul shots for ballots! Or, alternately, let's make everyone pass a basic civics test--ask a newly naturalized citizen if you need help. Or let's wipe out the lazy contingent altogether by requiring everyone to walk a thousand miles through the desert. That, there, shows fortitude.

40 comments:

  1. Our polling place is just a couple blocks away, so Paul and I enjoy walking there early in the morning on Election Day. We never have to wait in line. We wish that we did, because it would mean that people around here are getting off their butts, shaking off their apathy, and voting. You have initiatives to vote on usually? Jeeze, they never ask us opinions on things around here. They're probably afraid of the answers they'd get.

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    1. We always have initiatives, if not always initiative.

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  2. Voted early and we had many days the poling place was open. There was a steady stream of customers, but no lines! Only two initiatives and they seemed clear to me. Gambling money directly into the coffers of education with no change to the budget. If the zombies win, I do no know what I will do.

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    1. They might not be voting. They just want to pick your brains.

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  3. I have never been so sure of who NOT to vote for in this election. I remember as a kid my immigrant father helping me with my civics homework and he seemed to know as much as my teacher. Eventually, I saw what he had to know to become a citizen and wondered if I could even pass the test. Yes, I was an anchor baby and I think hair furor wants to deport me.

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    1. Yeah! I think he's fine with you. Your people didn't come from a shithole country.

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    2. Yeah, but you don't see Norwegians flocking to these shores. If they were brown he wouldn't want them.

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    3. We're not, though. We're lutefisk-belly white.

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  4. There's an initiative on our Michigan ballot this year to allow absentee ballots for any reason. As it is, we had to...um...predict that we would be out of town to vote by mail this year. That, recreational marijuana and non-partisan creation of voting districts are all ahead in the polls. I suspect lots of younger people will at least vote for legal weed, and tick a few Democrat boxes while they are in there.

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    1. Sounds like the way the Other Side uses gun control and abortion to make sure the tickers are ticking!

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  5. A lot of my clients don't have IDs that will get them in the door. Some can't get IDs. Apparently, for example, every hospital and courthouse in Louisiana has burned down sometime in the last century, and there are no records of any black person ever being born.

    So far as the dead go... I still get updated voter cards here at the house for the previous tenants, and I've lived here for 12 years. They could be dead, and they're still registered, but they're not voting.

    These sorts of purges we see seem to me to just be the last gasp of a numerical minority who knows that there's no way they can continue to control all branches of government if the numbers of the majority on the other side keep going up.

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    1. One would hope this is a last gasp but some of them #&$%ers can hang on a really long time.

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  6. Lordy, girl, I love you so much. Your brain works wonderfully.

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  7. I think the only people who should be able to vote are people I've personally vetted. I'll see/interview people the second tuesday of every month from 11am to 1pm at my house in Montana.

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  8. Great post, summing up the problems with humor and wit. Thanks, Murr. I'm sharing this one!

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  9. Here in DC, we had early voting several days last week. There were a limited number of voting locations, but they were evenly scattered across the city, and they were open from something like 7:00am - 8:00pm.
    So....after showing a few properties this morning, I popped over to my local early voting location -- one where I had 'early-voted' in the last election.
    Guess what? DC decided that 'early voting is over', and so there is none over this weekend. What am I missing here?
    And in other news, I have been telling The Young Persons around me that the present state of our country "is like pre-war Berlin". But I'm going to stop doing so, because all the blank stares I get back are a bit disconcerting.....

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    1. Try "pre-war Troy" and see if you get any different reaction.

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    2. Wasn't that the siege near Schenectady?

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    3. I had a siege near Schenectady once. Thought I was going to have to have it taken out.

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  10. I wish we got an early ballot to study. I was able to hunt one up and study. I was always pretty apolitical but that won’t do.

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    1. Yup--what have I heard? That being "apolitical" pretty much meant you were in the classes of people who were not being targeted in any way. Of course, we all are, with global warming, the ignoring of which should be considered criminal.

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  11. I have been voting by mail for several years so I always get an early ballot to study. I think it's necessary!!

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    1. No surprises that way. We keep our ballots on the counter and glance at them as we go by, linger sometimes, finally sit down with them.

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  12. Ipso Whacko is now a phrase I intend to use whenever possible.
    I love going to our polls here in my wee Virginia town outside Charlottesville. It's a chance to see people I hardly ever run into, for one thing. It makes voting an event. And the more I become a hermit, the fewer events I attend, so...

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    1. I do miss the eventness of it but I prefer the security of our paper ballots!

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  13. I LOVE your purple slipper-boots :)
    We're supposed to be getting local council ballot papers in our mailboxes soon, but so far I haven't even got the letter telling me the ballot papers are coming. How on earth will I know when to vote? (*~*)

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  14. Voting got easier here when the supreme court barred Draper's initiative (Calif. prop 9) to divide our state into 3 different states. One of the weirdest elections ever. Thanks for making the whole thing more fun!

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    1. I hadn't heard about that one. Periodically we do see a push for smushing northern California, Oregon, and Washington into one country.

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  15. The biggest demographic, sadly, is non-voters. They seem to believe that by not voting, they are not participating in what they see as a rigged rip-off of a system, which makes them...um...superior to the rest of us? But in fact, they are loudly participating, by allowing the election of utterly unqualified people. This election, I volunteered for a congressional campaign. I donated money and wrote letters and knocked on doors and set out a lawn sign and attached bumper stickers to my car and donated more money. Yet I am wondering how I am going to keep my brain from exploding at the non-voters around me, one of whom is snoring in the recliner over there.

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    1. I'd only serve if I could do it like Trump. Just sit back and give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to whatever I felt like doing. It would be the exact opposite of what he's doing, on every issue.

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  17. Ipso Whacko and Hair Furor! I learn SO much fro your posts and the comments. Now if I could only remember these phrases long enough to use them!

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