Tuesday's farce of an election forced upon the people of Wisconsin by an alliance between their state’s gerrymandered Republican legislature and conservative justices on both the state and United States Supreme Court continues to be the crow on the Capitol as we look towards the November election. (Paul Krugman went to town on the subject in Friday’s NYT. He’s not wrong, either.) Most of the ratfcking involved the absentee ballot process, which was a complete fiasco, if not an entirely accidental one. From The New York Times:



Others in Mr. Hintz’s district may have encountered the same problem. On Tuesday, calls began flooding the office of Dan Feyen, the state senator whose district includes Oshkosh, from voters saying they never received their ballots, even though they were told their ballots had been sent out. Nearly every one of those voters had requested their ballots on one of three dates: March 18, March 22 and March 23, more than two weeks before the election.

Mr. Feyen, a Republican, filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, asking it to investigate. He also wants those voters to be given a chance to fill out and return ballots. On Wednesday, the commission received a phone call from a postal worker in Milwaukee who said three bins of absentee ballots had been located that had never reached their destinations, mostly in Oshkosh and nearby Appleton. The number of ballots in the bins was not clear.



Now, the election officials in Milwaukee, which (mysteriously) had the most problems with its absentee ballots, want the U.S. Postal Service to investigate, according to WTMJ-TV.



Milwaukee's election director says he's very concerned about two issues regarding the post service's handling of absentee ballots. He says some were never sent out — and others didn't receive a postmark date — meaning election officials can't prove they were mailed in on time...On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Neil Albrecht says he's filing a request for an investigation by the U.S. Postal service to find out why absentee ballots issued on March 22nd and 23rd didn't make it to voters.



(Of course, the USPS has its own problems at the moment. And the perpetually circling vultures are unusually close to the ground.)



You’d have to be a newborn from Mars to believe that Wisconsin wasn’t a bench test for what the Republicans have planned for the general election in the fall. The propaganda drumbeat against vote-by-mail already has started from the very top. The federal courts are largely in position as a backstop, and the only real solution—swamp the polls—actually could be a life-or-death choice for a great number of citizens. Nice little republic we had. Shame that something happened to it.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io