A carriage with wooden wheels each wheel with 12 spokes was to transport valuable cargo to its destination. The carriage was owned by a group of investors who had appointed a smaller number of their group (a board ) to be responsible for any necessary repairs to ensure the integrity of the carriage. Before departing, the driver noticed seven broken spokes on the left front wheel and asked his supervisors for permission to have the spokes repaired since the directors were not meeting prior to setting out on this important journey. But the supervisors denied that request even after the board president requested a meeting, and so ordered the carriage driver to proceed to his destination. The driver while enroute and knowing the increasing risk of total breakdown stopped by an inspection station to request their intervention so that repairs could be made before continuing the journey, but the inspection station waved him on, not wanting to get involved in this issue while stating it was the board of directors’ decision. So the driver kept going. Once actually arriving at his destination the wheels were inspected by a master mechanic who would determine whether to allow repairs to the broken spokes before unloading its cargo and allowing the carriage back on the road, but instead he deferred that decision to the company which had sold the carriage to its owners; that company rejected the claim of defective parts. So the driver was simply asked to drive the carriage back to its origination point after cargo was unloaded, and on the way back the entire carriage collapsed. That is the story of the broken election system and its results—the supervisors (governors and secretaries of state) appointed by the boards of directors (state legislatures not in session) denied their request to give them time to repair the left carriage wheel (the elector slates); the inspection station (SCOTUS) responsible for upholding safety put the blame back on the boards (legislatures); once at its destination (the Capitol), the mechanic in charge (VP Pence) deferred his decision to the warranty company (Congress) which on self-serving partisan grounds decided to not repair the broken wheels but to just send the carriage (the integrity of our government) back from whence it came and so en route it collapsed leaving owners without a carriage. “And so now you know the rest of the story” (Paul Harvey).
