The "what happens next" machine! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Hey, I think I finally found a clip that shows how voting machines "work" these days!

For years, I've been telling folks that 'Sesame Street' in the '70s featured a hilarious Kermit the Frog skit about something called a "what happens next" machine. Everyone thought I was making it up, but now I've found the segment on YouPube.

A "what happens next" machine was a Rube Goldberg-like creation that turned the simple task of turning on a radio into a complicated ordeal:



Even if Kermit's "what happens next" machine worked properly, it would be ruined after its first use, for using it required cutting the rope.

I think whoever designed the new generation of voting machines must have been inspired by this sketch. I noticed a few years ago that when I go to vote and press the buttons on the machine, what happens next is that I have to press it 5 or 6 times for it to work.

After that, what happens next is probably a sandbag containing the vote falling on a seesaw. What happens next after that must be a balloon popping out of a box and pulling the lever that supposedly counts the vote. What happens next after that is that the balloon floats away and carries the voting machine with it.

What happens next after that is that public officials laugh it off because (according to them) the vote tallies aren't supposed to be 100% accurate anyway. What happens next after that is you get 28 years of one-party Republican rule. Then, what happens next is a permanent recession.

See, the "what happens next" machine really does make things complicated: It would be simpler to just quit your job and flush all your money down the toilet than go through the complicated steps of using faulty voting equipment to "elect" Republican politicians to put you out of work.