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The Unicorn
Author: Raine    Date: 11/08/2021 14:02:12

Last week, as the entire nation already knows, Virginia elected a trumpublican for governor. The rendering and the teeth-gnashing still continue to this day over the why and the how we lost. I'm not going to talk about that. I do want to talk about voting, and TFG's spread of 'The Big Lie'

The Big Lie started out with claims of voter fraud and stolen votes. It turned into trying to overturn an election with deadly violence. The scary voter fraud trope by the GOP has long been a staple of the party platform grievances. We know that a majority of states are trying to curb voting rights at an even faster rate than they did prior to the 2020 election last year. This is in spite of the fact that voter fraud is mostly mythical. Voter Fraud is the GOP's version of a unicorn in that respect. No one can completely say they don't exist, because they may exist, and to the GOP, their version of the unicorn is scary and deadly -- just like Big Bird, I guess. But - I digress.

Going back to last Tuesday's election in Virginia. It turns out the Governor Elect's son went to (I presume) vote for his father. He also seems to have taken the old voting joke seriously: 'Vote Early and Often'
The 17-year-old son of Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin attempted to cast a ballot twice on Election Day despite being too young to vote, local elections officials said on Friday.

Youngkin’s son, who is not being named because he is a minor, tried unsuccessfully to vote at a polling place in Great Falls, Va., which was not the assigned voting location for his home address, officials told News4, an NBC News television affiliate in Washington, D.C.

Election workers turned the teen away after they determined he was ineligible to vote, Fairfax County election officials said. He returned 30 minutes later and requested another ballot before being turned away again, News4 reported.

(snip)

"This morning, November 5, 2021, the General Registrar was made aware of concerns that a 17 yo male attempted on two occasions to vote on election day. The young man presented identification but was ineligible to be registered due to his age and was not permitted to vote. The man was given a registration form and encouraged to register for future elections," the office of elections said in a statement to NBC News.

In other words, the voting system worked exactly as it should have. A young man walked up to vote and was turned away because he was not only underage, he was not registered to vote at all. He broke no law because the system in place prevented him from doing so (now I have questions about when he was informed. I'd like to know why he came back a second time, but you get my point, I hope).

Wait! There's more!
The Post did not name Youngkin’s young kin, because he is a minor. It quoted a local elections official as saying the boy tried to vote once on Tuesday, then came back 20 minutes later and tried again, saying a friend the same age had been allowed to do so.

The official, Jennifer Chanty, said she told him: “I don’t know what occurred with your friend but you are not registered to vote today. You’re welcome to register, but you will not be voting today.”

(snip)

The paper identified Chanty as a Democrat. She said the Youngkins were not registered to vote in her precinct and added: “It was just weird. He was very insistent that he wanted to vote in this election and I said, ‘Well, you’re not old enough.’”

She also said: “Teenagers do stupid things. I’ll chalk it up to that. I’ll believe that first before anything else.”
While the system worked, I have to wonder about why this young man thought he could just go and vote on election day and I have a theory. The GOP has been talking about voter fraud for so long, they now have a large swath of followers who don't know what actual (in this case possibly attempted) voter fraud is. A spokesperson for Gov-Elect Youngkin's campaign gave the following statement:

"It’s unfortunate that while Glenn attempts to unite the Commonwealth around his positive message of better schools, safer streets, a lower cost of living, and more jobs, his political opponents—mad that they suffered historic losses this year—are pitching opposition research on a 17-year old kid who honestly misunderstood Virginia election law and simply asked polling officials if he was eligible to vote; when informed he was not, he went to school."

No apologies, no personal responsibility. No statement that he might educate his child on the civics of voting such as the where, why, why, and how as an example to the people of Virginia. No talk of how his own son tried to violate election integrity. Instead, they lie about this misunderstanding and try to deflect.

That is the result of the evil power to their propaganda. I linked above to a Wikipedia page sublink about TFG and The Big Lie. This is the link to the main article. Look at the company TFG (and his supporters) keep.

Republican Unicorns are actually pretty damn scary.

&
Raine

 
 

8 comments (Latest Comment: 11/08/2021 16:56:46 by Raine)
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