Ran across a tweet from Rachel Bitecofer. If you are not familiar with her, she is a political scientist who is often on MSNBC with a progressive view of the current political scene. Last week she sent an ominous message:

@RachelBitecofer

We need a plan for when MAGA tries to close down urban polling places with bomb threats on Election Day. 

Note:  in a separate tweet that I can’t find, Bitecofer advised people to vote early to avoid the possibility of your polling place being shut down.

This is a rather shocking statement. One thing almost never think about in this country is violence on Election Day. However as we saw on January 6, 2021 when Trump calls the troops out there are enough crazies to do his bidding. And he will be desperate this year.

Since MAGAs can’t win on issues, one of their fallback positions is to suppress the vote. They have been doing voter suppression forever but have gotten much more open and brutal about it since the advent of Trump. The reason the country is teetering on the abyss of shutdown is because MAGAs want to pass a law that would greatly suppress the votes of women.

Using a requirement that voters prove their citizenship by producing their actual birth certificate. If the current name does not match the name on the birth certificate the voter must prove that they are the person on the birth certificate. 

Since most women change their name upon getting married and there is often no “official” document for that, the mismatch between the birth certificate and the current name would disqualify a voter. As I noted this would most frequently be a woman.

Many lessons to take from the admonition above.

First we all need to be very aware that voting may be disrupted in your normal polling location. You have an alternative which is to vote early. 

However, since much of the early voting is done by mail, the Trump administration had the foresight to break the US mail system. Right now we are hearing many stories of mail taking weeks to go across town. If you vote early you may want to hand deliver or find some other method to have your absentee ballot returned to the auditor’s office.

Many years ago the parties could authorize people who could get completed ballots from invalid voters and turn them in to the auditor. Now that person must be a “close” relative. Not sure what close means, but if you decide to have someone turn it in for you, check with the auditor if that person is close enough of a relative.

As Bitecofer says, it would be a good idea to vote early this year, yet using the mail system may not be reliable enough. Therefore I would recommend going to the auditor’s office and vote there. And do it early enough such that if a problem is discovered, there is adequate time to correct it and still get that vote in.

If you can, plan to vote with a neighbor, friend or relative so you can have another set of eyes and ears if there is a problem. It never hurts to have a backup. Wives and husbands are good voting partners.

If you do end up voting on Election Day, try to get there early so if there is a problem there is still time to resolve the issue so you can vote.

The most important point this year is to vote for Democrats. We all need to vote for people who will strengthen our democracy. MAGAs are those who are enacting voter suppression laws and trying to take away citizens rights to vote. This is a huge detriment to democracy.

One other point. Remember that the MAGA presidential candidate is running to keep himself out of jail. I don’t know about you, but my moral compass tells me not to vote for convicted felons. 

At levels below the presidency my vote will be going for those who will keep the democratic system intact. I will not vote for this who put party first. Short form: vote for Democrats to maintain democracy!

Prediction:    Donald Trump will try to instigate riots in key cities on Election Day to keep Democrats from getting to the polls. – Mark Romano