Evolution of the Vote

Will the 2020 election never end?

Pennsylvanians cast 6.9 million ballots that year, 2.5 million of them by mail. Those mail-in ballots could not be counted until the polls closed on Election Night. Opening 2.5 million envelopes and recording the ballots takes a while. The “machine count” for in-person voting had Donnie narrowly carrying the state. Yippee! Four more years!

Of course, it is premature to declare a winner when 35% of the votes have not yet been counted. Those pantywaist Democrats actually believed that COVID was real and that standing in line elbow-to-elbow for more than hour with people who may or may not be vaccinated was a bad idea. It took 36 hours, but when all the votes were counted, Scranton native Joe Biden carried the Keystone State.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I’m a bitter Pennsylvania legislator. Fourteen Republican representatives filed a lawsuit to nullify Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law declaring it unconstitutional. The irony is that eleven of them voted in favor of the law when it passed in 2019. Double irony is that if mail-in voting was as “rife with corruption” as they claim, they were all elected in 2020 anyway.

The right to vote has evolved in Pennsylvania. In the 18th century, only white males were eligible. In the 19th century, Blacks and the few Native Americans that were left gained the franchise. It took until the 20th century for women to gain the right to vote. “Those flibbertigibbets will simply vote for the better-looking candidate!”

In the 21st century, fourteen Republican legislators would limit the vote to those who can spare an hour to stand in line outdoors on a wintry November Tuesday during a pandemic. “That’s what real patriots would do.”

By Ed Dufton