TRENTON, NJ – Alright New Jersey, this is no longer about containing a virus and more about containing an election.
There’s a growing consensus that none of this is about protecting lives and limited exposure to a potentially deadly virus. During the height of the pandemic, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy shut down businesses but said it was alright for thousands to gather for large scale protests.
He said it was unsafe to vote in person, but it was safe to wait in line for hours upon hours at Motor Vehicle Commission offices. It’s not safe to eat indoors at restaurants, but it’s perfectly safe to go indoors to grocery shop each week. Teachers are at risk of dying from the virus, but elderly and teenage grocery store clerks are perfectly safe.
Now, it’s not safe for in-person voting, but it is safe to trick or treat? The very nature of the holiday is, in reality, a pandemic’s worst nightmare. Millions of children in New Jersey going door to door, taking candy from a stranger’s hand and going to the next door.
Or, maybe it’s not, because studies have shown that’s now how the coronavirus spreads. It spreads from prolonged indoor exposure where COVID-19 hitches a ride on airborne droplets and lingers in the air.
Trick or treating is a contact tracer’s worst nightmare if that’s how the virus is spread, but it’s not. It’s not spread by touching credit card processing machines and it’s not spread by touching voting machines.
No, folks, this is not about containing a virus, especially not after Governor Phil Murphy just gave the green light for Halloween. Now, we’re not saying there should not be a Halloween this year, we’re saying that if Halloween is safe, in-person voting is also safe.
“As far as this moment in time, Halloween’s still on in New Jersey,” Murphy told NJ.Com this week. “Obviously, it’s not gonna be a normal Halloween. We’re gonna have to do things very carefully. I’m sure we’re gonna have protocols that we’ll come to. And God willing, the virus stays under control.”
The very thought of Halloween and trick or treating is against everything the Governor has been preaching for the past six months, which many believe is nothing but a bunch of overreacting, knee-jerking, political propaganda to stop in-person ballot machine voting this coming November.
Halloween and trick-or-treating is a huge cross-contamination risk…again…”IF” that’s how this virus is spread. As far back as May, the CDC and health officials all agreed, COVID-19 does not spread easily on surfaces.
So why no indoor voting? Lines can form out side, one voter allowed in at a time, wear a mask, sanitize on the way in, sanitize on the way out and you’re done.
If you’re worried about in-person voting, then sure, go ahead and vote by mail.
No, this is no longer about containing a virus, this is about containing an election and containing President Donald J. Trump. If Halloween can happen, so can in-person voting.
The biggest danger New Jersey faced during the pandemic was when Governor Murphy sent thousands of infected senior citizens into unprotected and unprepared nursing homes, killing nearly 10,000 senior citizens, the bulk of the death county of COVID-19 in the state.