Dear editor,

I was just disenfranchised. For those who don’t understand that big word, my vote was just taken away from me.

I received my absentee ballot two weeks ago, and voted a couple of days later.

I forgot about it for a couple more days, and then, mid-week last week, put it with other things to mail at the downtown post office. Then I noticed, on the back of the mail-back envelope, a place for my signature, so I signed there. Then I noticed another blank, for a witness to sign. I had not realized that absentee voting required a witness.

So, now what to do? We were – still are, of course – in the middle of a statewide stay-home order. Whom do I ask to witness my vote, after I’ve already voted and signed my ballot? More to the point: whom do I ask to expose himself or herself to the coronavirus (even though I don’t have it, as far as I know, as far as anyone knows if he or she has it) to sign my ballot.

So I phoned the Park Ridge Village Clerk Kathy Bemowski. “How do I get a witness in the midst of a pandemic stay-home order?” I asked.

She replied, “Just write a short letter saying that because of the pandemic, you are unable to have your ballot witnessed, and enclose it with your ballot in the envelope, and mail it to the Village Office.”

So I did.

Then, I heard on Wisconsin Public Radio that the April 7 election would not be postponed, and that absentee ballots without witness signatures would not be counted.

So, I drove to the Park Ridge Village Hall (at 4 p.m., today, Tuesday, April 7) where in-person voting was underway, and asked to vote in-person, because my absentee ballot (with no witness-signature) was not going to be counted.

The reply, “Sorry, Wendell, we just got another, later ruling: people who voted with invalid absentee ballots may not later vote in-person.”

So, I was not allowed to vote in this 2020 Wisconsin primary election, thanks to the Wisconsin State Assembly, the Wisconsin State Senate, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, and the United States Supreme Court.

Thank you, all of you politicians of the past 40 years, who put party over country; thank you, all of you states that installed high-tech voting systems that didn’t work (for example, the notorious 2000 Florida hanging-chads ballots); thank you, U.S. Supreme Court for the Citizens United and other decisions that favored the rich and powerful; et. al., on the whole bloody trail that is destroying our democracy.

But most of all, thank you pampered American voters, who care more for their fantasy movies, “reality” shows, and texting devices than they do about the world’s oldest and greatest and most precious democracy.

You have all helped to destroy it, and you won’t wake up, if you ever do, until it’s too late.

Benjamin Franklin: “Yes, we have a Republic–if we can keep it….”

Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Wendell Nelson

Stevens Point