Satire/Frank Lingo

Mailing My Ballot

I went down to the Post Office in September to mail my voter’s ballot. I wanted to make sure it got postmarked well before November’s Election Day.

The clerk stamped the date on the envelope and I breathed a sigh of relief. But out of curiosity I watched as he carried the envelope behind the line of shelves. I scooted down to the end of the counter to get at least a partial view behind the shelves.

That’s when I saw the clerk fling my ballot like a frisbee onto a huge pile of mail on the floor in a corner.

I hurried back to his place at the counter.

“Um, sir, will my ballot be delivered to the county clerk in time to be counted?” I asked.

“Which election is this for?” asked the clerk.

“THIS election! 2020. Biden versus Trump.”

“Oh, I’m afraid you’re too late for this election. It should be counted for the 2024 election if we get our machines working again,” he said.

“THE 2024 ELECTION??!! You’re saying it will take 4 years for an envelope to travel a few miles?”

“That’s if we get our sorters back, sir.”

“You mean those big machines that process mail very fast? What happened to them?”

“The President said they were threatening our election, sir. We had to get rid of them before they could be used to rig the election.”

“But won’t it rig the election to not deliver a lot of ballots?”

“That’s the price we must pay to stop voter fraud, sir.”

“Independent and bipartisan studies show that voter fraud doesn’t actually happen,” I pointed out.

“Well, then I’m sure the election will be fair.”

“How can it be fair when there are tons of ballots for both parties that won’t get in on time?”

“We always do our best, sir. ‘Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’.”

“That’s a great motto but swift completion isn’t really happening if the ballots aren’t delivered on time, right?”

“I have other customers behind you, sir.”

“Yeah, I’d hate to think they would be delayed getting their mail tossed on a huge pile in the back.”

“We have top men and women working to move the mail, sir.”

“Oh yeah? Who is working on the thousands of letters you threw my ballot on?”

“Oh, that pile? We have Chester working on that pile. He’s ready to retire and his eyesight is going bad but he’s been known to sort almost a dozen letters before lunch. And now I need to serve other customers, sir.”

I walked out feeling confident that the future of our country was in a pile of letters on the Post Office floor.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote”. Read a free excerpt at EarthVote.world. Email: lingofrank@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2020

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