do good things lunchboy.

Officer: *Emerges from the water with a grunt* You there, Sir!! I certainly hope you’ve got a fishing license!

Guy: *Panicking* Wha, no, I don’t!

Officer: Oh no?

Guy: *Screaming*

I did some digging.

The last time I went to vote, the door I usually come through was locked. It was prime voting hours, between 5 and 6pm, when people get off work and are heading to the polls before they close at 7.

Granted, these doors aren't the main doors by the main parking situation, but they are the doors closest to where voting is set up and are functionally the front doors. They should be unlocked, and they always have been when I've voted here before.

I looked through the window on the door. I saw a guy catch sight of me. He walked away.

I called somebody whose voting location is the same as mine. Had it changed again with all the shenanigans and redistricting of the last year? She was also on her way to vote and stopped to look it up: no, it was the same.

I walked around the building - like, fully around. The doors by the main parking situation were open. I walked down a long hallway - and yes, voting was happening here, just like it should have been.

I approached an election official - the guy I'd seen through the doors. Did he know that those doors were locked, and could he change that?

He scoffed condescendingly. "Anyone who can be stopped by that locked door must not want to vote that badly," he said. And then turned around and walked back into the Republican primary.

The security guard I talked to after this unlocked the doors immediately, which, great - but that's not the point.

The point is that they are gerrymandering the fuck out of us in the Southern states because we're here. They are systemically stealing our power because we're here for them to be afraid of. They are casually doing things like locking doors (or at least not unlocking them) during major elections because they're afraid of the votes we are still able to cast despite it all.

I can't prove this guy locked the door. I can't prove this was election interference. But his response to it is absofuckinglutely part of the voter suppression playbook, and I can guarantee that similar situations have been playing out across the South during primary season and will continue to play out during midterms in November.