Michigan legislators on Wednesday approved a new law allowing election workers to begin processing absentee ballots two days before election day, finally straightening out the kink in the process that made so much room for disgraced former President Trump to claim voter fraud in the 2020 election in the three “Blue Wall” states, the Associated Press reports.

Now to partially self-plagiarize from an article we wrote back in March about the Wisconsin state Senate killing off a similar bill: There are now only nine states which do not allow any processing (meaning simply opening envelopes and otherwise prepping the ballots for tabulation, not even the tabulation itself) whatsoever of votes prior to election day and as shitty luck would have it in 2020 three of those ten are the “Blue Wall” triumvirate of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Prior to the 2020 election, the Republican legislatures of all three resisted any and all pleas to let ballots be counted beforehand, which caused the “Red Mirage” and guaranteed the “big, massive dumps” of late night ballots for Biden that look suspicious to the paranoid dumbasses MAGA Land.

In the lead up to the 2020 election it was crystal fucking clear that MI/PA/WI Republicans’ true intent was to leave wide open a window for Trump to enact his absolute worst case-scenario assault on the counting process. Months and months of apocalyptic warnings of Proud Boys and MAGA loyal federal law enforcement storming vote counting places, seizing or destroying ballots, and assaulting election workers with the express goal of leaving the outcome of the election in doubt for an opening to declare martial law or God knows what else to remain in power never materialized, but not for lack of such ambition among the Trump regime’s loyalists.

It was just dumb luck and the hard work of elections officials that Michigan and Wisconsin powered through the count to make it clear enough for the networks to call them less than 24 hours after polls closed. Pennsylvania took four days longer for reasons not exactly clear – it could be with Arizona (allows early counting) and Georgia (allows pre-processing) much closer still outstanding at the time that most decision desks (save for one big exception in Arizona) wanted to be extra sure with the final call even if Biden already had a clear lead by the third day of counting. In any case, despite the not-too belated calls in Wisconsin and Michigan the damage was done.

So it’s great now that Michigan Republicans finally grabbed their balls and let some common sense legislation happen. Would be great if their MAGA buddies in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would do the same so we have a better chance of knowing who won on election night in 2024.