UNITED STATES—Do you recall the closing of some polling stations earlier this year?  It was a blatant attack to limit those voting against the president’s personal interests.  He did this knowing long lines would form right in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, thus putting voters in needless danger.

So Americans circumvented his devious ploy by deciding to vote by mail in November.  He tries to make a semantic difference between absentee ballots and mail in ballots, but they are the same because both are filled out at home and deposited to a mailbox or post office.

With voting interest, especially mail-in voting, at an all-time high in our nation’s history, Trump sees the writing on the wall and realizes that – as absurd as this will sound – too many people who vote for Biden could cost him the election.  And democrats will be voting by mail in far greater numbers than republicans.

We have been warned repeatedly that Trump will do anything, absolutely anything, to win again and thus avoid a possible prison sentence from the Southern District of New York, where pardons cannot be given.  So his urgency for needing a win surpasses any previous president – ever.

This unraveling of our now fragile democracy may make the pandemic pale in comparison. This is not hyperbole.  He has planted his top fundraiser and sycophant, Louis DeJoy as postmaster general who then dismissed scores of career people so that he could orchestrate the removal of mailboxes and the destruction of sorting machines, and then cut overtime pay to postal workers.  The previous sentence is cause for gasps.  This next sentence could cause you to choke because he has openly and blatantly admitted to doing so in order to win the election.  And here is the next sentence that could provide evidence that we are on the precipice of destruction:  There is no outrage from republicans in Congress or elsewhere demanding that all of this cease and everything be restored to pre-traitorous conditions, thus allowing everyone to easily cast their ballots.

This is odd even for them, because their constituents also need the U.S. mail to get their medicines and their social security checks. They need to mail their bills with confidence that they won’t be needlessly delayed, thus incurring late fees.

Please digest the absolute horror of anyone winning an American election this way.  It may happen if the courts can’t rule on this in time. Even then, there could also be the wildly outrageous scenario where even the Supreme Court would rule that voters don’t necessarily have the right to easily vote.

With all of the above filling me with abject fear, I roused from my seething anger and decided that I am NOT going to take this without a fight.  What Trump is doing makes me feel violated, and with congress not acting with unrepressed fury makes me feel metaphorically gang-raped.

Those of us who desperately want a new president have been told by his supporters to vote him out if we want Trump gone so badly.  But now we see that may not even be a viable option anymore.

So here are some things that We the People can do to circumvent the obstacles placed upon us. We CAN get our ballots counted.  Use one of these methods, and if you have any questions, check with your local election office.  You may have to work a little harder to get your vote counted, but if you don’t, your votes may not matter in future elections.  This is our time.  Don’t let it be our last time.

  1. Vote early in person; 41 states have some form of early voting.  See if yours does.
  2. Use a ballot drop box.  In many states, this bypasses the mail process entirely where they will be taken directly to county offices.
  3. Fill out your absentee ballot and drop it off at your regular polling location.  Nearly every state allows this.  There will be no lines for you – just drop it off.    A reminder again to check with your local election office for all of these options in order to be doubly and triply sure.

Because this newspaper is mainly for Californians, I urge everyone who reads this to forward to everyone you know across the country, and to post it on Facebook.  If you know anyone in any media, forward this onto them. We all need to understand that our democracy is both literally and figuratively in each of our hands.  This revolt, uprising, demonstration, protest – whatever you want to call it – is the most important one in our history, because it may be our last chance to keep intact our cherished democracy.

It doesn’t matter which party you support.  We should all adhere to Abraham Lincoln’s words when he said that what is morally wrong can never be politically right.