Winter Among the Alien Corn: Primary Elections - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A variant appears in The Road to Magdalena, 2012

Winter Amid the Alien Corn: Primary Elections

Costumed in baseball caps to plagiarize
Plebeian brotherhood among the swains,
Beg-hopeful archons of The People pose
Occupy-smug among foam coffee cups

And this is said to be an apprenticeship
For sending planes to bomb some far-off land
And wisely for to rule a people lost
Among wide flat-screened images of porn

Now let us chant:

The whole world is laughing
The whole world is laughing
The whole world is laughing

Real Americans Vote - weekly column 10.24.19

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Real Americans Vote

In my rural county the ballot is still paper but the gadget nerds in Austin have electrified the rest of the process – one’s driving license (“or other approved form of i.d.”) is scanned by a robotic eye, which issues a paper permission slip to the nice lady behind the table who then hands the paper permission slip to the voter. The voter carries the paper permission slip maybe three feet along the same table to another nice who takes the paper permission slip. The voter then signs a telescreen with a magic stylus. After this, the voter chooses from among three ballots, is issued a special blue plastic pen (“Be sure to return it”), and withdraws into a large space to sit at any of dozens of little desks to hide behind a folding cardboard screen (printed in patriotic colors).

After marking his ballot the voter carries it (“Be sure not to fold your ballot”) to a zippered plastic fiber box which looks like it might have begun life as a beer cooler and slides it in. Everyone thanks everyone else and the exercise in democracy is over.

Still, the creeping computerization of elections is frightening. Remember the onboard computers that brought down airplanes and killed hundreds of people this summer, sacrificed to the demon idol Progress.

Paper ballots are scanned by electro-mechanical machines, and that’s fine. Doubtful ballots are evaluated by committees and a decision is made. Corrupting a paper ballot can be done (as the ghost of Lyndon Johnson could tell you), but it requires a conspiracy of traitors who must fudge one ballot at a time.

But millions of electronic ballots can be corrupted at one time by one sullen, resentful little mansie who can’t get a date but has Learned. To. Code. That’s how we see it written, this magic incantation that will feed the poor and make the lame walk again: Learn. To. Code.

Learn. To. Code. worked so well for the airplanes and the people who went down with them.

Let’s keep the paper ballots. If bad people are going to change our votes, make them work at it. As the ghost of Lyndon Johnson could tell you.

As with all elections, this is an important one, with ten proposed constitutional amendments (our constitution dates from just after Reconstruction and is a clumsy mess) that must be addressed. Locally there are no other issues, but in a few other counties and precincts there are also special races to fill empty offices and resolve certain county and precinct issues.

The Texas Tribune (https://www.texastribune.org/2019/10/15/texas-2019-constitutional-amendments-what-voters-need-know/) offers the best discourse on those ten proposed amendment, including the complete wording and a reasoned discussion which attempts objectivity and which does not tell the citizen how to vote. A certain area daily newspaper, on the other paw, features only truncated wording, and offers questionable recommendations, including a suggestion that a state income tax might be a good idea and should not be left to the voters to decide.

Pitching hissy-fits on the Intergossip is irrelevant. We must think and vote.

Self-government is not a spectator sport.

-30-

Primary Runoffs - Casting a Vote

Mack Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Midsummer Primary Runoffs -

Casting a Vote

Well, no, one does not exactly cast a vote -
The petitioner presents his papers,
And the County Mothers pince-nez them
As the countenance of ‘Way Cool Jesus
Beams down upon all from the cinder-block wall
Of the youthatorium, focused on
The holy liturgical percussion-set,
Now sacrally stilled in a Lenten silence.
The beldams rubber-stamp democracy,
And, humbly honored by their Nihil Obstat,
The citizen communes with a party ballot,
Ignoring the glares of disapproval
From one set of partisan poll-watchers  
And ignoring too the approbation
Of another shoal of lapel-flagged bluehairs,
He sits in pontifical dignity
On the folding cathedra of wisdom,
At the cafeteria table of justice,
Rood-screened in occultus by cardboard sheets
(Bearing flags thereon, and symbols arcane),
And blots with The Sacred Pen of Our People
Little squares illuminating holy texts.
He frowns, recalling in indignation
Intrusive ‘phone calls from a candidate:
“Suspendatur,” he thinks, and then moves on,
Blotting, blotting away into history,
“Here, sir, the blotters rule.”  And then The Box:
The Blue Box or the Red; the Red Box or the Blue;
The Ballot, unfolded, face up, must be
Not cast but slid, like a speakeasy tip,
Gently, into The Box, The People’s Box.
Not cast, but slid, carefully, and then
In November one does this again.