And now for something completely different. A man with three buttocks Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Y’all know I’m an old fart. Which means that I’m crusty. Bitch and moan, piss and complain, all the live long day. God, I love being a blogger, especially since my keyboard doesn’t tell me to Shut up and quit bitching!
But as much as I love my life, every once in a while I do feel the urge to give something back. After all, I do have a brain, I just choose not to use it, kind of like dickhead Trombies who leave their face mask on the dresser when they go out. But whether you believe Trump’s doddering drivel about mail voting fraud or not, there actually is a potentially serious problem for the upcoming election in November, and it has nothing to do with mail in ballots.
It has to do with staffing. Almost every state has some form or another of early in person voting. The number of available days may differ, as may the number of locations and times, but they all have them. And then there’s election day itself.
But the vast majority of polling place workers are retirees, senior citizens like me. They want to get out for the day, meet people, and give something back to the country. But they are also the ones most directly in the sights of the coronavirus, and there’s nothing to indicate that we’re anywhere near getting a handle on that.
And the smart people know it. In interview after interview these days, activists and Democratic strategists are begging young people to come on out and volunteer to be poll workers, both for early voting as well as election day. And social activist superstars like LeBron James are talking about turning their arenas into polling places, and providing trained workers, so that minorities aren’t disenfranchised by the pandemic from their right to cast a vote. Personally, I’m Michael Jordan man, and always will be, but with his activism, James has wormed his way into my heart.
This really does figure to be a looming issue for the election, especially if Trump is successful at turning a whole lot of people away from the safer option of voting by mail. But the good news is that I have a solution. It’s so damn simple that I can’t believe that nobody has thought about it before, and the best part is that it won’t cost us a goddamn dime, we’re already paying for it!
Attention all state Governors! Call. Out. The. National. Guard! Why the hell not? You already use them for wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, mudslides, and to supplement local law enforcement when the local population gets just a wee too feisty. They’re already sitting around their armories on the weekends already, when the heaviest in person voting takes place. They’re young, fit, athletic, and will already have their own masks and hand sanitizer.
They won’t be scary, they’re our own neighbors. Put ’em in their boots, fatigue pants, their national guard t-shirts with their names stenciled on them, and let ’em don their floppy covers for that rakish here to help demeanor. And there’s nothing quite like a bunch of national guard troopers working at a polling place to give pause to a bunch of non authorized GOP thugs from trying to intimidate voters.
You can’t tell me that a guardsman who can operate and launch a multi phase, 12 rocket, surface to air missile launcher can’t match a name on a drivers license to the name on a card in an alphabetically ordered box. And the guys and gals who program, maintain, and fix those rocket launchers could eat a glitch in a voting machine before the company could even get a guy out of the garage in a truck. Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong. The national guard is by its definition a part time army, meant to serve its state in its time of need. There is nothing more important than the running of free and fair elections to determine and protect our democracy. Just ask them, they’ll line up. OOH-RAH!
To know the future, look to the past.before the insanity of the 2020 election, relive the insanity of the 2016 GOP primary campaign, and the general election, to see how we got to where we are. Copies of President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange are available as e-books on Amazon, at the links above. Catch up before the upcoming release of the third book in the trilogy, President Evil III: All The Presidents Fen
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
They can also handle the drop boxes for places that are doing mail-in rather than in-person – we’re going to need a lot of those boxes this year, and they really should be guarded.
You are not wrong there. I have my suspicions that there are going to be millions of ballots targeted by his thugs, and what could more convenient than a drop box, where they are conveniently in one place. container
Of course, knowing the average IQ of that crowd, they’ll probably burn their own ballots by mistake. Do recall that’s what some of them tried to do just that with 5G towers and think a coronavirus vaccine will get a chip from Microsoft in their system.
A bunch of them in Michigan have burned absentee ballot *applications*.
Oh,Lord! ?
On the basis of that idiocy alone, P J, I rest my case.
I’m thinking vandalism by dropping in paint or something similar. (They’ve had to close the boxes at the local PO from Saturday night to Monday morning because of that.)
Welp, nice idea. Now let’s see if fearful asshole’s executive order cutting money from all National Guard except those from Texas and Florida throws a monkey wrench into the solution. And you know he isn’t the one who thought of this as a solution to your estimably reasonable and good solution–so who did?
GREAT IDEA, Murph! I’m going to try to suggest this to our governor here in Minnesota. I say try because I have never not once gotten an email to go through to him. It always bounces back with an error message. Maybe I’ll try calling instead!
tin soldiers & Nixon coming. We’re finally on our own.
Good idea, but Kentucky Governor Andy “You can’t be doing that” Beshear beat you to it. Used the Guard for the primary in June.
Just got a call from my county elections office asking if I was available to serve (I had clerked during the primary early this year). I explained that I couldn’t this time due to a family member on chemo, BUT…. I shared your terrific idea about asking national guard members to serve. She seemed excited at the idea (I think they are pretty desperate for staffing) and promised to pass it along. Thanks for publicizing it as a solution! Hopefully others will do the same!