It's an outrage!

Another story sure to produce spluttering outrage in certain corners of the internet:

“UWGB is a polling location for students and residents on Election Day but I feel by asking for this to be the site for early voting is encouraging the students to vote more than benefiting the city as a whole,” she wrote on August 26 in an e-mail to David Buerger, counsel at the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. “I have heard it said that students lean more toward the democrats…. I have spoken with our Chief of Staff and others at City Hall and they agree that budget wise this isn’t going to happen. Do I have an argument about it being more of a benefit to the democrats?”

Already Salon has reported on this, leaving in the bit about the budget.  TPM has it, too, but the bit about the budget is reported further down, and not in Teske's words.  Already the focus is on the question of benefitting Democrats unfairly; thus is an snowball formed on the intertoobs.

I want to be outraged, but the story here is about $$$$, not political affiliation.

The clerk says the staff agree with her, they don't have the budget to afford this polling place (Wisconsin One says they do, albeit not necessarily in the fund the clerk is talking about).  So she's looking for a reason to deny the request that isn't "We can't pay for that."

The real issue with voting is controlling the purse strings so certain locations don't get machines (creating lines) or materials (creating lines) or even a polling location at all (as in this case).

Read the full report at The Nation; there is only one polling place being allowed for early voting in Green Bay, and it's only open during business hours (Houston is much larger than Green Bay, but there are multiple polling locations open here for the next two weeks, and they will be open 7 days a week, as late as 7 in the evening).   The outrage is not with this clerk looking for a legal fig leaf, it's with the determination to say "We can't afford it!," an argument that works for welfare and medical care and anything else somebody in government doesn't want to pay for.

Because, you know, if you spent that money on polling places people would just waste that money by, well, you know, voting.  Poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every four years (or two), and all that.....*

*and speaking of "sheeple, (Trump has taught us all, or should have, to be careful what we point fingers at, because it's usually the log in our eye being reflected back at us), if you got to Salon or TPM, note how many comments agree this clerk should be fired, or horsewhipped, or tarred and feathered; as if that would do anything.  Green Bay, WI has one polling place for early voting, it's open only during business hours, and as far as I can tell that's convenient for:  the football team, and almost no one else (well, maybe college students, actually).  But the outrage is directed by the way the story is told (and retold).

Wake up, sheeple!