CARLTON FLETCHER: If you really want to vote, there are plenty of chances to vote

This is the moment. Tonight is the night, we’ll fight ‘til it’s over.

— Macklemore

I know it’s the curmudgeon in me, but I just can’t help it.

Why, back in my day, when I turned 18 and never missed an opportunity to vote, you got one shot at it. Election Day. Whatever you had to do, you took enough time off work that day to make sure you got to the polls between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Imagine me saying that while pumping my fist in the air, and the visual is complete.

Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and others in the state Democratic party have filed a lawsuit challenging the absence of Saturday early voting ahead of Warnock’s runoff against Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

In the immediate aftermath of last week’s election, the secretary of state’s office indicated one day for early voting likely would be set for Saturday, Nov. 26. But Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican party loyalist, subsequently announced there would be no early voting that day, citing a state law that prohibits early voting on any day that immediately follows a state holiday.

The state holiday in question? Robert E. Lee’s birthday or Confederate Memorial Day, however you may label it.

Now before you accuse me of being all woke (I don’t know what that actually means or if it’s good or bad … I just know it’s one of those with-it words people throw around to show anger or pride, depending on their point of view … and since I’m not sure which I should feel, I just let it go), let me mention a couple of things.

1) Federal and state employees get too many damned holidays as it is. It seems they get at least one a month and sometimes three or four. Those are the days banks shut down and we get no mail. (I might beg the point here that a lot of people in Albany — according to the Squawkbox, plus my own personal experience — only get their mail when it’s convenient for their carriers anyway. The Post Office screwed up when it came up with that app that tells us what mail is due on a particular day. Now we don’t just think we’re not getting our mail, we know it.)

2) Why in the hell would our state have a holiday celebrating a Confederate general when there are a lot of U.S. military personnel from our state who fought bravely for this country, not against it, and they get nothing? If you want to go out and light a candle for Lee, drink a bottle of rotgut and shout “Yeehaaa!” a few times to honor him, fine. But do it on your own time. Except for those strange people who are still trying to fight the American Civil War a century and a half later, Lee did nothing that made him worthy of statewide recognition. Since he fought against the U.S., he was kind of pretty much a traitor. (But that’s just the way I see it; you’re entitled to your opinion, just like the people who call George Floyd a hero are entitled to theirs.)

Warnock and others in the Democratic party say Republicans are using the ploy to suppress the vote in the Dec. 6 runoff.

“The secretary of state’s guidance regarding Saturday runoff voting is deeply concerning for anyone who believes in the right to vote, and it clearly contradicts Georgia law,” Rebecca DeHart, the executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said. “We will use every legal tool at our disposal to ensure that Georgia counties can offer voters ample opportunity to cast their ballot as laid out in state law.”

I’ll go curmudgeon on you again:

I would never doubt that anything Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp or the state legislature did was at least an underlying attempt to keep Democrats from voting. That’s the way they roll. But here’s the thing: There will be at least a full week of early voting opportunities. And with the many modes of transportation available to people who are registered, and the various modes by which they can cast their ballots, losing one day of early voting should in no way keep anyone from casting a ballot.

Here’s an idea: Get off your a$$ on the days that polls or open, go to the Civic Center and vote. Nobody can suppress you unless you let them.