An ole Sourdough remembers voter suppression in the good ole days.

I ain’t never been to rural Virginia, and I wonder what it’s like. It’s sure comfortin’ to traffic in stereotypes, but I won’t have none of it. I jes’ imagine it’s pretty, kinda like the open country we have here in Alaska but not no snow.

Like I been saying, I ain’t gonna figure them rustic Virginians to be no backwoods types, like some damn thing outa Deliverance. I reckon they got plenty technology in Virginia cause they got U.Va. down there, and that there was founded by none other than Thomas Jefferson. I ain’t a betting man, but if I were, I’d bet they got the very latest in voting machinery. Stuff that don’t need no paper cause it’s all done with that ‘lectricity, like that what them Democrats brought to the ole Tennessee Valley.

See, it would take some one a whole lot smarter’n me to figure out how to hack into those machines what’s supposed to count the votes. Up here in Alaska, we didn’t have no Thomas Jefferson, and we sure as shootin’ ain’t never had no University of Virginia.

Hell, when they had an election up here to move the Capital, all the ballots were on good old fashioned paper, just like the pages of a Gideon Bible. Now, them folks down in Juneau sure didn’t want the Capital of Alaska out in Wasilla, ’cause that would be like taking taters out of Idaho, or horses out of Virginny.

Betcha can just imagine that the folks down Juneau way, weren’t even going to let them yahoos up in Wasilla take the Capital away from them. Trouble is, they hadn’t invented them computified counting machines, and even if they had, back then folks in Alaska wouldn’t know what to do witha mini-bar key other than to have a good go at the Prinz-Brau.

See, if you wanted to steal an election in them days, you had to do real work. Not some sissified computer hacking where the heaviest thing you have to lift is a smart card, like the one some young stud lifted in Tennesee.

Back then you had to do stuff like open up a fire hydrant with a twenty-pound wrench. Oh boy, when I think of all them Wasilla voters slipping and sliding and blocking intersections, well, it’s a lead-pipe cinch they ain’t about to be voting to move no damn Capital to where they can keep an eye on them elected officials and all.

‘Course here in Alaska it’s cold, so a bunch of open fire hydrants sure goin’ to freeze up, and I guess them fancy pants politico scientists would call that “voter surpressin’.”

An like I was sayin, I ain’t never been to Virginny but I don’t figure you could count on ice to keep people from voting. But then again, I don’t know if an open fire hydrant would make a whole lot of mud in the Old Dominion, and I guess that could kinda get the votin’ bogged down, if you know what I mean. Especially in precincts where that George Allen feller is running so strong.

That weren’t all they done in Alaska to keep the Capital from being moved to where you would find the 60 or 70 percent of the Alaskans who live in or nearby to Anchorage. They had to take a big old chain, and drop it on a ‘lectric transmission line. ‘How did they do that?’ you might be asking, and hell, back them a lot of people asked the same question.

Turns out they used a whirly-bird heliocopter, which might could sound like going to a parcel of trouble just to drop a chain on a ‘lectric line. But somebody must have known something, because just about all of Anchorage went dark, and people started thinkin’ a lot less about where the Capital was gonna be, and a whole lot more about how they could keep their pipes from freezin’ up. I shutter to think what woulda happened if we had them modern ’lectric voting machines back then.

Well, that there was in the old days. Now in these modern times, Republicans steal elections just like falling off a log. And there ain’t hardly an old-timer around, who remembers what real work was. Or where to get a twenty-pound wrench. Or a damn whirlybird heliocopter. If you know what I mean.

If’n you do know what I mean, do me one favor. Don’t …

“… tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”