We have not been posting comments on current affairs on any day but Wednesday for some time but Nancy, the insightful wife of your loyal correspondent, asked a question yesterday that prompts this rare Tuesday inquiry.

A few days ago we received in the mail—and maybe you did, too, if you live in Missouri—a “Missouri Vote-By-Mail Kit.”  It was not sent to us by our county clerk although it is to be sent to that person.  It was not sent to us by the Secretary of State, the state’s top election official, who is facing a lawsuit filed by a voting rights group accusing him and local election officials of violating the rights of voters by making them do extra things and risk their health to vote in November.  Whether that is an appropriate or accurate allegation is for the courts to decide.

The point is: This “kit” does not come from anybody who will be administering our November elections.

It comes from Uniting Missouri Political Action Committee, an organization that supports Governor Parson’s re-election.  It includes vote-by-mail applications for Nancy and her husband to finish filing out—a few check marks here and there, a telephone number, an email address and a signature line.  All we would have to do is fill in those blanks and send the application to the county clerk.

But Nancy noticed the address on the “kit.”  It was addressed to “The Priddy Household or Current Resident.”

“What if somebody else was living here?” she asked.

A Current Resident.

That makes us a little nervous.  What if the Priddy Household had re-located?  What if the people at this address filled out this form and signed our names to it?   What if the email address didn’t have our names in it—many don’t.  What if the signatures were close enough to the signatures on file with the clerk’s office that an employee there decided “close enough” was good enough?  If the signature by Current Resident doesn’t match and a clerk’s employee calls the phone number listed (which would not be our own) the Current Resident could apologize and say it’s the best they could do since breaking their wrist last week.

We wonder if this mailing won’t just make the Cole County Clerk’s job more difficult.

What if we were to later re-register and go to our regular polling place on November 3 and be told we already had voted?

We worry that this “kit” could lead to confusion at best and voter fraud at worst.

We wonder how this political action committee can encourage a voting process that its party’s presidential candidate constantly blasts as already rife with fraud.

Perhaps those presidential concerns are neutralized by a message on the outside of the kit: “Our Republican candidates up and down the ballot are counting on you to cast your vote this year.  Liberal Democrats hope you’ll let fear stop you from voting. Don’t let the Democrats win!”

It also reminds us to “Stay Safe. Vote by Mail.”

Us.   Or the Current Resident.

Of course, if the Current Resident (who might not be us) were to vote by mail, we couldn’t “stay safe” in OUR voting, could we?

Well, it’s kind of academic in our case because we are the Current Resident and we plan to risk our lives, if you will, by FEARLESSLY donning our masks, going to our voting place on November 3, and casting our ballots.  Who we vote for is none of your business. But fear won’t keep up us from voting.

Will this piece of mail lead us to bear any kind of a grudge against Governor Parson?  No. Our perceptions of candidates are not based on what we get from them in the mail but are based on what we learn and what we know about them. We suggest that is a course for all responsible voters.

In fact, as we have noted before in some of these entries, it’s a good thing that we don’t base our votes on the crap we get in the mail from their campaigns.

Current resident might.  But not The Priddy Household.