Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
An idealistic teenager, living in the 51st ward of a fictional city in middle America, volunteers at the local party headquarters, and learns a lesson or two about modern urban politics.
Little Pavel Wears Stripes
By John F. Di Leo
When Pavel arrived at the 51st Ward party headquarters after school one day, he found the deputy committeeman hard at work at his computer, studying some obscure lists. Sneaking up behind the old man, Pavel shouted “Hello, Pockets! What’s up?” without warning, and prepared to catch the chair in case it toppled.
But his shout produced no such reaction. “Mmmm. Hello, Paully,” mumbled Pockets, without emotion, without moving his eyes from the spot on the computer he was comparing with a printout, a form printed in such small font, the only thing Pavel could discern from his distance was its header: Current Prison Population. “Gimme a grenade, wouldja?”
Pavel Syerov, Jr. (Paul to his friends) headed back to the refrigerator to get a longneck for Pockets and a diet cola for himself, and asked “What’s the project today?”
“How’re your eyes, Paully?” the old man asked, looking up from his computer for the first time. “Just got a new printout from the warden, and I’ll tell ya, they use a smaller font every year. It’s like they’re bein’ unhelpful on purpose, ya know?”
Pavel smiled and pointed to his own eyes. “Twenty-twenty, Pockets. Glad to help!” Pockets swapped the list for the longneck, and told his young helper to start calling out names and addresses, periodically stopping him to double-check a spelling or a middle name, or occasionally, to verify an expected date of release.
This wasn’t Pavel’s favorite kind of work. Unlike brainless collating or envelope-stuffing, which allowed for conversation with his mentor, this required careful attention to detail, and allowed for no conversation while working.
Finally, after an hour of tedium had passed, Pockets said “Done! Thanks for the help. That’s rough on these old peepers. Gimme a grenade, wouldja, Paully?” and sat back in his chair.
As they relaxed with their fresh drinks, the youngster asked “So what exactly was this all about? Amending the rolls so we know who can’t be allowed to vote?”
“Nah. Come on, son, if you’ve learned anything from me this summer, it should be that everybody can vote, right? No, it’s about where they’ll be voting from, whether they should get an absentee ballot, and things like that.”
“You mean they’re allowed to vote from prison, Pockets? I thought going to jail meant losing your individual rights?”
“No, it means losing some rights. Now, I’m not a lawyer, Paully, but I know this much: in Illinois, you can always vote. It’s just a little harder sometimes.”
Pavel asked if they have polling places in prison. “No, we usually can’t go that far, son,” Pockets answered, “but I like the way you’re thinkin’! There are only about a dozen states where felons lose the legal right to vote permanently (not that it’s enforced very well, lucky for us!). In Illinois, a convicted felon can’t vote while he’s in jail, but he can vote when he gets out. Our job, as always, is to help him do it. If they’re in jail, they won’t be able to head to the polling place, so we’ve gotta help him out.”
“But if he’s in jail, you just said he’s not allowed to!”
“Right, so we help him out. See?”
Pavel asked for clarification, and Pockets obliged. “If they’re getting out in time, we just make sure they know where the polling place is. If they’re not getting out in time, we can sometimes take care of it for them… absentee ballot applications, returning the ballot on time, and so on. Gotta make sure they vote, eh Paully?” he chuckled, as he took a healthy swig of his beer.
Now Pavel understood. To Pockets, the county jail, state penitentiary, and other such long or short term holding tanks were just another address, just another constituency to manage through Election Day. Sometimes more of a challenge than others.
“Ya know how pollsheets are marked, son?” Pockets asked in a moment of helpfulness. Pavel nodded yes, and Pockets continued. “Well, just as the pollsheets show whether the voter is affiliated or independent, whether they voted in the last election, or the previous, or the previous… these prison rosters are marked too. What they’re in for, for how long, whether they’re convicted or not, when they’ll get out. So we build our lists to make the most of our opportunities, just like with any other.”
Wow. “Can it be worth the bother, Pockets? Are there enough people in jail to be worth this kind of focus for a campaign?”
“Of course, Paully! Think about it. At any given time, there’s about one and a half million people in jail in the USA. That’s three times the difference between Gore’s and Bush’s vote totals in 2000. If we’d done a better job that year, who knows?”
How indeed. “Do you know if this method has ever actually changed an election, Pockets?”
“Well, for starters, felons are virtually all Democrats (except for the occasional ex-governor), so the sheer plurality makes it a worthwhile pool to utilize. And since so many races are close, this kind of demographic is certainly always gonna be helpful. You never can say exactly what votes put a candidate over, but if you want some fun numbers, sure, I have a few!
- In the famous Rossi-Gregoire recount in Washington state, our Democrat beat Dino Rossi by exactly 129 votes in the final recount (of several!); King and Pierce Counties alone produced exactly 129 ‘improper’ felon votes. Champagne time, huh?
- There were 5600 felons who ‘improperly’ voted in Florida in 2000. Without our allies in striped jumpsuits that day, it wouldn’t have looked like such a tie, and our man Al Gore could never have staged his false claim that he won Florida at all.
- At least 935 felons voted in St. Louis in 2004, and you better believe there were races closer than that in St Louis County that year!
Pavel remembered some of those stats from the book he was reading in his spare time, “Stealing Elections” by John Fund (published by Encounter Books), not that he thought it would be wise to mention his personal reading list to Pockets at the moment. But he asked for further info…
“Do we take any more advantage of these criminals besides their vote? I mean, are they good for anything else too?” Pavel was hunting, but sometimes open-ended questions like this resulted in interesting tidbits.
“Sure, Paully, felons are good for other stuff. I mean, I concentrate on the election, ya know, I’m not involved in other stuff. But campaigns put’em to use, candidates, the independent expenditure committees, ya know.”
“How, Pockets? What do they do for us?”
“Lotsa things,” mumbled Pockets, as he sipped his beer. “I remember Wisconsin’s ACORN units got in trouble in 2004 for hiring felons to do voter registration – about fourteen of ‘em, if memory serves – even though felons are banned there from being registrars. And America Coming Together got in trouble in Missouri, Florida, and Ohio, also around the 2004 cycle, for hiring dozens of felons to round up votes. By the end of that investigation, it turned out they’d hired felons in practically every state that ACT or ACORN are active in! Whaddaya know, Paully. I guess they just like felons, huh?”
Pockets cracked open a fresh longneck and continued. “The most recent case in the news, of course, is the matter of the New Black Panthers. Apparently, they’ve decided at the top that voter intimidation at the polls is a useful strategy – worked well in swing precincts in 2008, so they’ve sent the message that it’s okay by releasing those guys they caught threatening people in Philly last election.”
Pavel remembered having discussed that one awhile back – the case of the thugs in pseudo-military gear, jackboots and all, who threatened white voters with clubs and scared people away from the polls without voting. Attorney General Eric Holder had dropped the prosecution even after the judgment was in place against them, so that they wouldn’t be sentenced for the crime. Pavel shuddered and returned to the somewhat less horrifying subject of felon registration.
Pavel opened up a bag of honey wheat braid pretzels and offered them to Pockets, as he started digging deeper. “Is this the kind of project that’s just run in the background here at headquarters, or is there ever more to it?”
Pockets winked, and said “Depends on the election, my boy! Some elections are more dependent on this particular population than others.” He started ticking off examples on his fingers, one by one, as he continued.
“Any time Jesse Jackson is interested in a race, he holds voter registration rallies in the prisons. He’s famous for them. Gets thousands of prisoners to register, pick up their absentee ballots, and so on.”
“But if they aren’t allowed to vote from jail, what’s the point?”
“You think the wardens are gonna dare to micromanage that, with all the cameras and reporters that follow Jesse Jackson around? Nahhh. They figure it’ll get sorted out at the county, that valid applications will go out and invalid ones will be rejected.”
“And will they?” asked Pavel, without much hope behind the question.
“Whaddaya you think?” Pockets chuckled, and took another swig. “Remember, the rules are different from state to state. Even though Illinois citizens can’t vote from jail when incarcerated, other states’ citizen might be allowed… two states allow it that I know of, Maine and Vermont, and there might be others. But that’s enough. We just need those names in mind if the warden questions us. We can say that since some states allow it, and we can’t be expected to know every state’s rules, we should collect the applications from everybody, and let the states sort ‘em out. Since the states will almost always assume that the vetting was done at an earlier point, everybody gets to vote! Good deal, eh, Paully?”
Pavel opened another diet soda. He was beginning to wish he were old enough to wash this information down with something stronger… “So we register Illinois’ prisoners here in Illinois, regardless of their real home state, and let them vote here?”
“Well, no, son, I can’t say they all do. I don’t know what the percentage is. We don’t have a prison in our ward, so we just know what we do here. I can’t speak to the rest of the state, or the rest of the country… all I can say is that we do what we can, and when opportunities present themselves, we make sure we don’t miss out!”
Pavel asked if the tactic is used all over the country, and Pockets said “Sure, here and there and everywhere! I remember a few numbers off the top of my head, not a lot… let’s see…
- I remember one time in 2006 when the NAACP registered over 150 inmates in Butler County, Ohio – a real battleground state! – of whom over sixty filed absentee ballots. Boy, did their sheriff object to that! Hmmm. Wonder how that turned out…
- And I remember the Allegheny County Jail in Pennsylvania in 2008, when a big joint registration drive was held by the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, ACORN, Just Harvest, and others (whose names escape me, forgive me Paully, I’m getting’ old!)… anyway, they registered 456 people in about two hours… that made the news… over 700 absentee ballots were cast that day from that jail. Who says prisoners can’t be productive, eh Paully?
- Just today, there was a nice article on the web about a group in New York, the Fortune Society, that helps prisoners with their needs on reentry into society. Voter registration for felons is their specialty. This piece focused on some robber who spent six years in jail so he’s never had a chance to vote, and they registered him and 75 others on Tuesday, in time to vote in Queens by the election. Good for them, eh?
“Well, yeah…” Pavel stammered, a bit overwhelmed. “That’s impressive. A million and a half people in prison across the country at any given time, huh?”
“Yes indeed! And more and more of them voting every election. See, that’s why we don’t worry about the polls. People in prison don’t have phones; they don’t get polled. But they vote, Paully, they can vote!”
Pavel asked if there’s ever been any kind of pushback from the establishment. “You’d think that the powers that be would object to this sort of thing, wouldn’t you, Pockets?”
“Depends on who’s in the establishment, Paully! Prisoners vote Democrat, and Democrats run the cities that have the highest felon populations, by far… so why would they ever object? It keeps us in office! Once in awhile, you run into some Republican officeholder who objects… I remember a kerfuffle in Alabama a few years ago, maybe in 2008, when the GOP did battle with The Ordinary People’s Society, a local affiliate of the Drug Policy Alliance… the GOP said that registration in prisons would enable vote fraud, and our guys said it’s not fair to deny the vote to some who deserve it just because you imagine that somebody might abuse it… dunno how that turned out. Probably still in the courts. And while it’s still in the courts, Paully, they keep right on voting!”
Pavel remembered reading about that case on the internet. “Was that where we punched a hole in the felon restriction based on moral turpitude, Pockets?”
“Yessir, that’s the one. The NAACP challenged the concept of denying the vote to felons, and got the courts to agree that only crimes of moral turpitude should result in stripping the person of voting rights. If their conviction was of a felony not involving moral turpitude, then they should still have the vote.”
“But I couldn’t find an answer to this one, Pockets… wouldn’t all felonies involve moral turpitude? I mean, you don’t get sent to jail for moral behavior, right?”
“I think they’re talking about the difference between, say, murder and rape on the one hand, and stuff like drug possession on the other. They’re saying that even if drug possession is categorized as a felony, it shouldn’t keep a guy from voting, just because he’s caught snorting coke or puffing on a joint, ya know?”
“Oh, right, Pockets. Heaven forbid we should keep people from voting just because they’re drug addicts. Heck, they could be high when they show up to vote!”
“Fine with me, Paully, fine with me… as long as they’re sober enough to vote Democrat.” He took another swig of his beer, and chuckled again. “and if they’re not, our judges will always be happy to help them!”
Copyright 2010-2024 John F. Di Leo
This is a work of fiction, and any similarity with any person, living or dead, is unintentional. The Tales of Little Pavel were originally published in serial form in Illinois Review, from 2010 through 2016, and the full collection of stories about Little Pavel and the denizens of the 51st Ward is available in paperback or eBook, exclusively from Amazon. Republished with permission.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II) are available only on Amazon, in either paperback or eBook. His latest book, “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Three,” was just published in November, 2023.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN. If you’d like to become a citizen contributor for AFNN, contact us at managingeditor@afnn.us Help keep us ad-free by donating here.
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA