SCOTT LUDWIG: ‘Fixing’ the vote

The following story is satire. According to Webster, satire is “something that has as much basis in reality as virtually anything coming out of the mouth of a certain former president.”

In other words, it’s not true. Mostly, anyway.

At least not for now.

There has been a lot of effort since the last election to tighten up on voting rights. According to someone who has his head buried deep inside Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s “campaign,” the following proposals for voter eligibility requirements are being considered. If they work in Georgia, they might have implications for the rest of the country as well. If you promise to keep them under your hat for the moment, I’ll share some of them with you.

According to the proposed new requirements, a person will be eligible to vote only if they can:

· Either from personal experience or through stories passed along by family members, correctly describe the physical appearance and/or use of secret decoder rings, X-ray specs, seahorses (the kind sold in comic books when they sold for less than a quarter), Silly Putty, and a Slinky.

· Provide photographic evidence of (a) a trip they’ve taken along Route 66, or (b) personal visits they’ve taken to no less than three national parks. Proof of both allows potential voters the option of foregoing one of the other requirements (at the discretion of their respective poll worker).

· Recite – verbatim – the lyrics to “America the Beautiful.” Any verse other than the first is fair game (also at the discretion of your poll worker). Note: Only under extreme circumstances — again, as determined by your poll worker — should the fourth verse be required.

· Provide high school transcripts indicating they received grades of C- or higher in any and all classes relative to American history.

· Natives of Alaska must not have been born before Jan. 3, 1959; in Hawaii, the applicable date is Aug. 21, 1959. (Those are the dates Alaska and Hawaii became states, respectively.) Note: This requirement does not apply to natives of Arizona, the 48th state. Lawmakers agree that anyone who has been alive for 109 years should be grandfathered in as a voter. Besides, there was no evidence of anyone that old living in Arizona at the time of this year’s alleged discrepancies.)

· Correctly answer five out of seven questions pertinent to the film The Wizard of Oz. (Sample question: What does Scarecrow fear most? Answer: Fire.)

· Present verification of having eaten open-faced hot turkey sandwiches (with gravy and mashed potatoes) at no less than three roadside diners in the continental United States. (Validity of answer determined by polygraph.)

· Name the entire starting lineup of either (a) the 1972 Miami Dolphins, (b) the 1927 New York Yankees, or (c) the 1995 Chicago Bulls. (This may or may not be at the discretion of your poll worker; this is still under discussion.)

· Provide a Cliffs Notes-style version of an American novel written prior to 1960. (Choice of novel subject to approval of your poll worker.)

· Voter choice: Demonstrate the ability to (a) bounce the rubber ball off a Fli-back paddle, (b) use a Hula Hoop, or (c) hold a Bible right-side up (also being considered as an acceptable response: upside-down.)

· Provide photographic evidence that a family member (to include the voter) — at one time or another — owned a Barbie and/or a GI Joe doll. (Also under consideration: Ken dolls.)

A final decision is expected before the mid-term elections in 2022. Feel free to express your concerns to your congressman.

He/she probably won’t acknowledge them because they, as they will quickly point out, are very busy people — being tasked with changing democracy and all. But they will always encourage you to exercise your freedom of speech, because that’s what it says in the Constitution.

I remember when getting people to exercise their right to vote was the problem.

Today, the problem appears to be trying to find ways to get them to stop. Presumably, the reason behind all of the proposed changes was because that “certain former president” (as well as his constituents) can’t accept the fact that his opponent garnered several million more votes in a recent election. Therefore, he surmised, something surely has to be wrong with the electoral process. These proposed changes are simply ways those Democratic kind of guys are trying to fix the vote.

“Fix the vote.” Feel free to call it that, because that’s exactly what they’re trying to do.