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Thursday, June 7, 2012
Voting Rights AND Responsibilities
There are no rights without responsibilities. This is as true of the right to vote as it is other rights we hold dear. Our right to vote is infringed upon when it is not counted or when it is cancelled out by a fraudulent vote. It is not infringed upon by requirements that merely require one behave as a responsible adult.
Voter ID is a prime example. Many States are making the attempt to prevent voter fraud by requiring voter ID at the polls. In response to criticism that the poor, disabled and/or elderly may not have valid state ID, states have offered to provide a government issued ID free of charge. This is not enough for the Left. The requirement to show ID such as a birth certificate to secure a valid state ID is also apparently too much of a burden for the disadvantaged. But while it certainly isn't against the law to have misplaced your birth certificate or naturalization papers, responsible adults in this country should have this and other important paperwork and know where it is. Parents should be responsible with their children's birth certificates or other evidence of citizenship until the children come of age. This is nothing more than common sense. Having these documents or securing them when you need them is just part of the privilege of being an adult in this country. It is time to start treating all people as adults, not as children who cannot be counted on to do their homework without supervision. The only exception I might consider making is when communities and public records are destroyed by natural disasters and documents are therefore not replaceable. If the Left wishes to focus its GOTV campaigns on people who are for one reason or another lacking either state-issued ID or the documents needed to secure one, then it needs to focus as well on helping people get those documents too. For that matter, the Republicans could make a sincere effort in that area. If you can provide a ride to the polls election day, you can provide a ride to the DMV or help someone get a copy of their birth certificate ahead of time.
I'm originally from Nevada, where voters are required to register 30 days before an election in order to vote in it. I oppose same day voter registration. In my opinion, it is an invitation to fraud, as it makes it possible for people to register and vote at multiple locations. It is up to the individual to pay attention to deadlines and register on time. A voter is no more disenfranchised by the requirement to register ahead of time than they would be trying to vote the day after the election.
There is currently outrage on the Left due to the state of Florida attempting to purge its voter rolls of non-citizens. The Left would have you believe that people are going to show up at the polls and be denied the right to vote with no warning. But all Florida is asking is for people who may not be citizens to verify their legal status. They are being notified there is a question, well ahead of election day, and being given ample time to respond. I simply do not see this as unreasonable. "But what if someone doesn't get their notice?" the Left whines. Two points. One, this has been all over the national news, so I have no doubt it is big in the local news also. If a voter has any reason at all to think they might be part of the purge, all they probably have to do is call and ask. Two, maybe they didn't receive it because it was sent to the wrong address. If it was sent to the wrong address, it means the voter didn't properly update their voter registration with their new address, as required by law. So it all comes back to personal responsibility. Naturally, since Obama, Holder and his DOJ see absolutely everything through racism-colored glasses, they're screaming that the voter purge is targeting minorities. No, it's targeting possible non-citizens fraudulently voting in U.S. elections. Has it occurred to the leftists that perhaps, just perhaps, non-citizens residing in the Florida just happen to be minorities in a greater percentage than the general population of the state? It's not as if there has been a steady stream of Northern European immigrants to Florida in recent years.
I liken voting to serving on a jury. We have the right to a jury trial, and by extension, the people have a duty to serve on juries when possible. If you are chosen to be on a jury, you will be thrown off the jury if you snooze throughout the trial or fail to follow the rules of the court. So it is with our right and the duty to vote. We The People are the judge and jury of our elected officials. Those who sleep through the electoral process or don't follow the rules may end up not exercising their right to vote, i.e. be thrown off the jury. And that is no one's fault but their own.
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The problem with this depiction of the tsunami of voter ID laws enacted entirely by Republican-dominated legislative bodies is that they address a problem that doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteAlso, they create a much bigger problem for millions of eligible voters for whom such new restictions are an imposition sufficient to deter millions of voters, most of whome would likely vote Democratic).
Pennsylvania’s Mike Turzai, Ohio Republican apparatchik John Husted (who recently tried to cut off tens of thousands of mostly Democratic voters by eliminating the early voting such voters embrace), hundreds of other GOP voter obstructionists, and every Republican who continues to give tacit approval to this ‘voter fraud’ canard reveal how far the fruit has fallen from ‘the Tree of Lincoln.’
The issue of voter fraud is a lie, a canard, and what one observer called "the voter fraud fraud."
Yet the Brennan Center for Justice at The New York University School of Law noted, “…though voter fraud does happen, it happens approximately 0.0009% of the time.”
To give some meaning to this percentage, National Weather Service data indicates Americans are struck and killed by lightning with the same frequency.
As such, these new laws are the analog of curing dandruff by decapitation.
But there isn't any dandruff. And Republican voter obstructionists know it.
One Republican inadvertently exposed the GOP's authentic motive when he said “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to Win the state of Pennsylvania. Done!”
That gloating revelation from Mike Turzai, the state's House majority leader, encapsulates what one observer called “…the voter fraud fraud.”
Turzai is a modern Republican in every sense. He and the hundreds of Republican state legislators who share his enthusiasm for deforming democracy are more suited to countries with election systems that the United States could once call into question.
Republicans of the 1960’s were eager to buttress democracy by fighting for every American’s right to vote.
During the time of the 1965 Voting Rights Act 30 of the 31 Republican senators voted for the VRA. The lone dissenter was lifetime bigot Strom Thurmond, who switched from Southern Democrat the year before.
The Senate version of the bill was written by Everett Dirksen, a Republican. In the end, a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the VRA - in both houses of Congress.
The bill’s importance was so self-evident that four Southern Democrats - Al Gore Sr., Ross Bass, George Smathers and Ralph Yarborough – broke ranks with their Dixecrat brethren and voted in favor.
The Voting Rights Act is the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress. Lyndon Johnson called it “…not only a monument to this Congress, it is a shining moment in the entire history of the United States Congress.”
That was 57 years ago, when Republicans were still men and women of honor.
Republican senators in 1965, men and women like J. Caleb Boggs, Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen, John J. Williams, Carl Curtis, Jacob Javits, Margaret Chase Smith, Clifford P. Case and Leverett Saltonstall would NEVER sell their souls by vivisecting democracy to win an election.
Turzai, Husted and the hundreds of Republican state politicians who share their enthusiasm for deforming the democratic process have shamed the nation, turned back the American democracy calendar to a less democratic time, and made a mockery of those men and women who made the GOP a grand party.
Today the Republican Party is worse than a national embarrassment. Its assault on our election system has made it an enemy of our way of political life.
No American, regardless of political perspective, should stand for it.
As such, any attempt to turn the chicken droppings of this Republican voter suppression into the chicken salad of important legislation should be exposed for what it is.