Day: April 26, 2020

My Mom and I were chatting.

The usual pleasantries, How the family is and how things are going, you know, usual Mom stuff.

Then Mom started talking about the upcoming election and vote by mail. 

In the back of my mind I’m thinking this will probably not go well, but I go along for the ride.

Mom asks me what I think about vote by mail. Uh oh, this is going to go South really fast.

I tell her I disagree with the “All vote by mail” initiatives.

“Why?”

“Because I think it’s too easy for shenanigans to affect the vote.”

“Not really,” she says.

“Yes really Mom. Voters in FL couldn’t handle pushing a pin through a piece of paper several years back. Other states have been sued to force them to review, and clean up their voter registrations. Each of those invalid registrations would produce a mailed ballot to a household that shouldn’t be sent a ballot. This would potentially allow multiple votes to be counted that shouldn’t be.”

“People wouldn’t do that,” She says.

“Trust me they would, Mom. Probably for no other reason than it would be funny and they’d think it’s no big deal. Mom, I’m actually in favor of requiring ID at the polling location.”

“Oh we can’t have that. There are lots of people that don’t have ID and can’t afford it,” She replies.

“Really? So how do these people write checks, do banking, cash their paychecks, get on a plane, or use a credit card, Mom? It’s a pretty low bar to produce your state issued / required identification to cast a vote. If it’s a matter of not being able to afford a state ID, then make state IDs free, and still charge for drivers licenses.”

“Some people don’t have birth certificates, Son”

“Come on Mom, I don’t have my birth certificate. I’ve never gotten a replacement copy since the fire. But I do have my driver’s license, and a little thing called my passport which every citizen is also supposed to have. So once again, if you’re a citizen you’re supposed to have some ID right? Those folks who are so old that they may not have these things are probably not in much shape to vote, not that they shouldn’t be able to, but it’s a very small subset. Unless you count the vote by seance crowd.”

“You sound just like YOUR FATHER!” [Note: They’ve been Divorced for 50 years, He’s been Dead for 28 years.]

“So you’re saying I Win????  Hello? Hello? Mom?”

“IF YOU WISH TO MAKE A CALL PLEASE HANG UP AND TRY AGAIN…”

Hmmm, I knew that wasn’t going to end well.