by Lisa Vihos
It was a little over week ago today,
that legislators in Wisconsin gaveled in,
gaveled out. 17 seconds in which
they would not consider
the governor’s request.
During a deadly pandemic,
under a stay-at-home order,
how can we ask the citizens
of our fair state, to risk
their lives to vote?
Not only can we ask,
the legislators said,
we will demand, and gain
the support of our brethren
on the highest court in the land.
April 7, 2020, mark the record,
SCOTUS kicked Wisconsin
in the balls, under the bus,
out the window along with
12,000 absentee ballots
that could not be returned in time,
because they had not been received
in time, even though so many
had been requested by good
law-abiding folks way back in March.
No matter, we are closing down
this right, they said, knowing that
with only five of one hundred eighty
polling places open in Milwaukee,
they could effectively
suppress the vote. Because,
as the chief thief and narcissist
among them had pointed out—if ever
we should expand early voting
or voting by mail—“you’d never have
a Republican elected in this country
again.”
Editor's note: screenshot of an April 14 tweet—
Lisa Vihos is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in numerous journals both print and online. Author of four chapbooks and editor of two anthologies, she is poetry and arts editor of
Stoneboat Literary Journal and an organizer for the world-wide movement,
100 Thousand Poets for Change. She lives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
