POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

Off and on throughout last evening, I checked the results of the election for the seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. If you have not seen the results, here’s how the election turned out:

At the beginning of the evening, I was gearing myself up to write a very caustic post, rhetorically asking the “public servants” who had insisted that this election be held as scheduled how they liked the results. I kept thinking of the lead item from the Onion on the morning of the primary: “Wisconsin Primary Voters Receive ‘I Voted’ Headstones.”

But, as the evening wore on and the cable news programs—on all three channels—kept reshowing clips from the daily press briefing of the president’s Coronavirus task force, the irony just started to drain out of me.

I have no right whatsoever even to suggest–never mind to admonish–that everyone must vote even if voting means risking what so many Wisconsin voters risked last week.

It is, however, very clear that the only way that any of this is going to change is if as many of us as possible do make a very determined effort to exercise our right to vote.

We have reached a point, I think, where explanations and arguments are no longer necessary.

As many of us as possible simply need to vote.

Then we can start talking and writing again about what is specifically needed to ensure that our public institutions are fully functional and that they start to function, again, in the service of the public interest.