2015-02-24 – In a few hours we’ll know whether we’re going to have an election for mayor in the City of Chicago.

What’s that, you say, aren’t you having one this very moment?

Technically, yes. Today, February 24, 2015, is election day in Chicago. I went to vote this morning for mayor and for alderman. On a day that is freezing and hard to get to the polls.

Republicans rig elections by disqualifying people from voting and restricting polling hour and gerrymandering. Democrats rig election—at least in Chicago—by holding them in one of the coldest months of the year.

And that’s not all. They rig elections by making the ballot confusing. When we vote in November, our ballot is cluttered with a hundred judges that we’re supposed to have an opinion about. When we vote in February, we have too many candidates and a two-tiered system that allows us to have a real election if no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote. When it’s freezing outside.

Someday, when global warming comes to Chicago, it might be a good system.

If you’ve ever wondered why Democrats have never stopped Republican efforts to rig elections, it’s because Democrats do it, too. And it’s not by fraudulent voting. I know the joke that, in Chicago, we vote early and often. We’re the poster child for voter fraud. But it doesn’t happen. Why would a pol risk retail cheating when wholesale cheating is perfectly legal? Just make sure the rules to give you an unfair and insurmountable advantage. On the issue of unfair elections, the politician are united.

One other thing: you can tell it’s Election Day when you go out in the morning to walk your dog and there’s a forest of small vote-for-me signs that sprouted up over night. On cold days like today the wire supports for the signs don’t go easily into the ground, so the payrollers plant them in mounds of snow. The same ones that my dog Lefty prefers to pee on! Marking their territory.