The COVID-19 pandemic has given us a long roster of war heroes, the latest, the voters of Wisconsin.
Democratic Governor Tony Evers ordered the April 7 election postponed to protect election workers and voters from the coronavirus.
The majority Republican Legislature overturned Evers.
The Republican-dominated State Supreme Court and the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Wisconsin Legislature.
Tens of thousands of voters applied for absentee ballots but thousands of voters never received them.
Polling places in Milwaukee, usually 180, were reduced to five after thousands of poll workers stepped down, fearing exposure to the virus..
Republicans hoped incumbent State Supreme Court Judge, Daniel Kelly Hands, a Republican candidate endorsed by President Trump, would benefit from depressed voter turnout.
But when the votes were counted, Democrat Jill Karofsky won election to the Wisconsin State Supreme Court with a 9 percent margin, a landslide.
Like Black voters in the deep south during segregation, Wisconsin voters put their lives on the line to cast their ballots.
These men and women are genuine frontline heroes in defending our most precious democratic right, the right to vote.
But it is also is a warning of the extreme vote suppression tactics the Republicans will use in the November election, even during a deadly pandemic.
Tim Wheeler
Sequim