"Our Kind of People"

            We have work to do, but several states are showing the way.  Start with Voter Identification laws.  Everybody instinctively knows the importance of voting, even if they don’t usually vote.  Another of our basic instincts is to thwart cheaters, even if we hurt ourselves in the process.  Our strategy is to combine voting and cheating into what we call “Voter Fraud”.  Even though it is virtually nonexistent, it’s an easy sell because it taps deep emotions.  Voter ID laws disenfranchise a significant number of people.  But they’re not Our Kind of People.

            We also should be busy “adjusting” district boundaries so that Our Kind of People get more wins in their districts.  Gerrymandering is an age-old political practice, and we know how to do it.  It can be done neutrally, but why?  Now that the Supreme Court has lifted up the rug, we’ll just sweep away our opponents.

            Of course we’ll limit the time span that is available for registering and voting.  It seems stupidly transparent, but it’s also an easy sell on the basis of saving taxpayer money.  By ending voter registration twenty-five or thirty days before election day, we will exclude last minute voters and people who are moving to find jobs, and transients—not OKP.  Then cut back on polling staff & infrastructure, voting hours, and absentee voter access time and justification.

            Around here, we know it’s not always a just world.  But exclusionary OKP trickery deserves the scorn of both the just and the jaded.