Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
I visited a woman in the hospital this weekend. She had a heart attack and was unresponsive on arrival. The doctors didn’t know if she would make it. Here’s a note from her husband (I did their estate plan, back when I was in private practice):
“When you are laying in bed at 2:00 a.m and your mind is running the gerbil wheel of ‘what if she doesn’t wake up, would she want burial or cremation and what do I do with the ashes, keep them or scatter them, and what funeral home should I hire, and who is going to scan photos for the video but would she even want a memorial, and what are her friends’ phone numbers or maybe invite only family, and can we even have a memorial, what are the Covid rules and oh God, what if she doesn’t wake up?’ . . . it’s not as much fun as you might think. Spend some time talking to your family so they know the plan.”
Joe Doakes
What Joe said.
I have been confidently assured there is no ballot fraud. I’m dubious.
The Minnesota Supreme Court issued an opinion in DSCC v. Simon, court
file A20-1017. It’s eye-opening.
Minnesota law has long allowed a voter to have someone help them mark
their ballot. It’s historically been used by the blind or disabled,
given by a friend or family member, and done inside the polling booth.
The opportunity for fraud or mistake exists, but it’s a single vote.
The law allows one person to help no more than three voters.
The Democrat party asserted they had the right under federal law to
“help” an unlimited number of voters mark their ballots off-site, and
then to deliver all those marked ballots to the polling place.
Democrats asserted the Minnesota law that allows one person to “help” no
more than 3 voters, and to deliver the ballots of no more than 3 voters,
was a violation of federal voting rights law.
The Secretary of State disagreed (amazingly). The Republican party
joined the suit to object. The trial court agreed with the Democrats and
issued a temporary order allowing the practice. The Supreme Court
disagreed, slightly.
Democrats can “help” an unlimited number of people mark their ballots,
but no one person can deliver more than three of the marked ballots to
the polling place. No more bringing in boxes full of marked ballots
from the trunk of your car. Instead, Democrats must recruit more
runners to deliver all the marked ballots.
It’s probably just me, but if I were of a mind to cheat the vote, I
could think of a way to do it under this system. Able marks hundreds of
ballots in the names of blind, disabled, elderly, dead, and non-English
speaking voters. Baker, Charlie, David, Emily, Frank and many more,
earn a few bucks delivering three ballots to each of Ramsey, Hennepin,
Dakota, Carver, Wright, Sherburne, Anoka, Isanti and Washington
counties. Better still, they earn no money, they get class
participation credit for their college Political Science course. The
odds of counties comparing names is nil. Multiply by 86 counties and
the chance to influence the results is . . . significant.
Good thing there is no ballot fraud.
Joe Doakes
Strap in. This next two months may well make us pine for the good times back in 2000.