Top Comments: Good News Edition (We all need some these days)

To be honest, my original headline was: Well Over a Million Absentee Votes Already Received in Wisconsin. I didn’t want to scare anyone off so I changed it to reflect the whole point of this post — the good news that people are voting in record busting numbers. “Bigly”.

The actual number as of 4 days ago was 1,027,585. Mine is one of them (we have a ballot tracking here so I checked). As of yesterday the total was over 1.3 million (for comparison around 2.9 million votes were cast in Wisconsin in 2016). “Beautifully” and “strongly” bigly numbers if I used the limited vocabulary of He Who Must Be Removed. 

Strange topic for Top Comments, I know. Usually I write this kind of stuff on the main board, but tonight needed a diarist, this was the topic on my mind for a few days, and TC is the friendly place where people come to get something other than the tragic fare generally on offer “out there”. This good news story and hole in the Top Comments schedule have collided and formed this out of the aftermath of their encounter.

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Those numbers are just the absentee ballots that have already been received more than 2 weeks before the election despite a tRump-induced mail slowdown which means they were mailed very early. Taken on their own, they represent 35% of the total votes cast in Wisconsin in 2016 and that’s just as of Wednesday.  Many, many more have been received since then or are likely already in the mail and being Dejoy-walked to the election centers as will those which haven’t yet been mailed.

On the first day of early voting on Tuesday, nearly 80,000 showed up to cast their votes and there has been fantastic turnout for the rest of the week. Even The Guardian has noticed that we’re breaking records here in Wisconsin on both absentee and early voting.

Even better news: we’re not alone. Most of America is also setting voting records.

In Wisconsin during a pandemic we’re hampered by strict photo ID standards and other Republican ordered hoops that must be jumped through in order to vote in person, early, or absentee. If one single step in the absentee voting process isn’t followed (such as forgetting to sign your return envelope or not voting in front of a witness who is required to sign your return envelope and include their home address), your ballot goes into the garbage can.

Voters are told to be very, very careful to follow the procedures exactly.

Republican-enacted laws also require ballots to be received by election day in order to be counted. There have been court cases regarding this with the current ruling stating that if a ballot is postmarked by election day it should be counted, but the GOP is frantically trying to have that ruling overturned by courts they’ve systematically stacked with Republican ideologues. 

Stay tuned because they’re not done suppressing those votes which tRump appointed Postal Service head honcho Dejoy has already ensured will be delivered late.

Elections clerks are also not allowed to pre-count any absentee ballots (or even remove them from their return envelopes) until election day which is certainly going to delay the vote count. When you consider the sheer numbers of ballots that will have to be removed from their return envelopes (Carpal Tunnel Alert for election workers!) the delays will be even worse. As of today it’s 1.3 million votes that have to be removed by hand on election day and that count will likely double by then.

It’s another part of the GOP scheme to declare victory on election night as their slavish knaves have been ordered to risk Covid by voting in person on election day and then claim that absentee and early votes tallied later are the result of voter fraud.

In any event, enthusiasm to remove the Orange Infestation currently contaminating the White House is sky high and people are voting like their lives depend on it (they really do!). 

Side note: I have finally received my new glasses following cataract surgery. I delayed the surgery for a few years because I had bigger fish to fry so I couldn’t see well for some time now.

I had a toric (corrective) lens implanted at an additional cost to me (well worth the $1200). I still can’t believe how well I see and how light my new glasses are without the thick right lens for severe astigmatism. I couldn’t order them until a month after the surgery due to the need to wait to do the refraction until the eye heals. 

These new spectacles were additionally delayed because of Covid precautions at the optometrists office limiting the number of customers to 1 (with an appointment) per hour and at the manufacturing facility (as well as shipping delays). 

I’ve had them for a week now and they still look strange since I picked them out while wearing a mask — not the best way to select your frames. The superior clarity of my vision outweighs eyeglasses that are somewhat funkier than I expected. 

All’s well that ends well.

Now, for what you really came for: Top Comments, Top Mojo and Top Pictures. Enjoy.

TOP PHOTOS from October 23, 2020

Enjoy jotter's wonderful *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!

Thank you jotter for the awesome image magic!

I would have liked more cats.