Thread by @TheresaTiresias

November 3rd needs to be a GENERAL STRIKE DAY ('scuze my shout) because no one should miss their voting opportunity this time around, just because their employer won't do the right thing. If we're all off, they can't fire everyone! #Nov3GENERALSTRIKE (thread) @kboopresswatch

The Republican Party, more than ever, needs to suppress democracy. They have a full playbook to make voting harder: They are sabotaging ballot printing (happened in Puerto Rico, it worked, they'll do it again), they're sabotaging the mail,

They have an organization called True the Vote that (of course) is about anything but truth--it's about getting their saboteurs into the actual offices that count the vote. There are plenty of tricks they can use there, depending on the place--for example--

They will challenge voting signatures in places where there is a heavy Democrat vote. Challenged votes in (e.g.) Multnomah County, Oregon, work well to suppress raw Democratic numbers, even if it appears that signature challenges are even-handed;

simply because of proportion. A ten percent reduction in Multnomah County votes is a vastly greater number than a ten percent reduction of (say) Malheur County votes (there are more marmots than voters there). (Hey did I mention this is the new @kboopresswatch address?) And

that's just getting started. And that's in a Democratic-heavy vote-by-mail State where Oregonians think their votes is safe. Ho ho! Let me tell you about how to tweak pneumatic vote counting machines; you can reduce the vacuum so that more ballots get "spoiled" by ripping,

you can speed up the machine so that more ballots get crushed, you can alter the registration so that votes at the top or the bottom get "missed." You can claim that there is "water in the basement" even if there's no basement (that

actually happened here in PDX a few elections back, in an attempt to stop Merkley). Oh, but in non-vote-by-mail States, there's more fun to be had--gerrymandering districts so that city majorities become rural minorities, closing the polls, and of course directly altering the

results, simply by hijacking the "proprietary" computer code, or using the infrared ports or the wifi to hack in. Pull up gregpalast.com for a more complete list! Naturally closing most of the polls makes things ever more difficult for people standing in line for hours

as they fear for their jobs--but if we're having a GENERAL STRIKE NOVEMBER THIRD there will be less heat on the individual employee and more people available to notice dirty tricks. (Darn, did I start shouting again?)