The Frozen Chosen – Alaska’s Three Electors

I keep hearing people say, “It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.”

Is that supposed to make us feel better? Hey! I know you really feel uncertain and worried for the future of our democracy with the Russian hacking and whatnot, but don’t worry, it will get worse before it gets better.

Who says that in your everyday life? Your oncologist? If your family, like ours, just had the 12 days of Christmas turned into 20 days of radiation, you know this is not a phrase your doctor uses.

This week the Electoral College meets to cast ballots for who will be the elected president. Oh, I know, we all thought we got to do that back in November, but that was just a little exercise in pretend democracy and the smartie pants people will get to decide now. By smartie pants, I mean they aren’t always so smart. In fact, maybe some have stinky pants, but I’ll get to that.

There’s a push across the country for people on the right and left sides of the spectrum to contact electoral voters and beg them to save us from fascism and vapid Twitter storms by voting for anyone but Donald J. Trump. Seriously. Anyone. There’s just too much crazy sauce on the noodles right now to know how having a president living in a tower in Manhattan is going to work out.

Alaska has three electoral votes, thus three voters. See, Alexander Hamilton came up with the idea for super-duper voters before we had the popular vote. Well, women, people of color, non-property owners, you get the idea, weren’t included in the decision-making at all. No matter. The Electoral College was supposed to be a safety valve so foreign nations or kooks couldn’t have influence over who ran America. Maybe he was a time traveler. Hard telling, not knowing.

So, our three bravehearts are heading south this week to go vote for Trump and here is where all hope is lost for me.

Vote No. 1: Former Gov. Sean Parnell. You remember him. He was the guy who made sure the oil companies are now paid to take our oil, and, he spent a bunch of money on parades and a media campaign telling rapists to “Choose Respect.” Were I governor, I would have made rapists pay for their crimes and would have told oil companies to “Choose Respect” and not spill and loot our state, but that’s just me. Parnell’s old buddy Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson has been appointed secretary of state, and Trump’s nasty talk of women is just for locker rooms so, shrug.

Vote No. 2: Carolyn Leman, married to former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman under Gov. Frank Murkowski, is another of our “supervoters.” For all the allegations of hacking and voter fraud, election fraud, etc. during this past election, her husband sat at the helm of a major election snafu in 2004. Mrs. Leman may be familiar with all of this. Oh, it’s still unsolved and probably always will be, but when Leman was in charge of our elections, the voter files were altered 17 months after they were certified.

When, through the courts, attempts were made to find out who had altered the tabulator files, it was discovered the entire department dealing with the election used the same username and password — impossible to figure out. The username was “Admin” and the password was “password.” Clever. Yawn.

This leads us to Voter No. 3: Jacqueline Tupou, who is being sent by Juneau, a somewhat reasonable town when the Legislature is not in session. In an interview with this paper this week she too reports being swamped with correspondence from Outside asking her to vote for someone other than Trump. (Just so you know, there are liberals asking for voters to vote for Mitt Romney — that liberal rebel. He’s damn near Chavez next to Trump.)

Tupou has some concerns about how the president-elect has treated the press and Muslims. Seriously, Ms. Tupou, you are a shining light on a hill, a beacon of reason, you are our Obi-Wan. Does that seem like a bit much?

Well, if you’ve read the column up to this point, you know the bar is pretty low, but my thanks for even mentioning those pesky behavioral disorders that will soon be given the nuclear codes. (As an example, now would be a bad time to use that phrase, “Things will get worse before they get better!” )

Alaska is not a winner-take-it-all state, so there’s a pretty good argument for Tupou to give a third of Alaska voters representation – you know, like democracy.

Here’s a small request for the three Alaskans — the frozen chosen — on their way to decide the future of our democracy. Could you pray about it? I mean that, in all seriousness. God help us all.

Comments

comments