I Vote for Votes

There is a consistent thread to so much of the political miasma that stifles all tiers of our governments – voting.

I have the right to vote because I was born in Brooklyn NY, then and now a part of the United States of America. This makes me a citizen, which is the only criterion for being awarding the right to vote.

Why then do I have to separately register to vote? Why also do the political parties have so much power over voting? Why if I currently live in a township that is part of a county that is part of a state that is part of a country do we have different and distinct voting districts? Why is Election Day scheduled for a most inconvenient regular working day?

The consistent thread that all of these issues share is that they make it harder for people to vote. The harder it is to do something the less people will do it. How is limiting the number of voters attractive to politicians? If they can stack the deck by building an organization to energize votes from their supporters yet stifle the votes of their detractors they tilt the election in their own favor. Irrespective to what the majority of their constituency believe. Energizing support is a good thing. Artificially stifling voting opportunities is not and should be eradicated.

Artificially Stifling?
• Currently twelve states are being sued for gerrymandering. We could easily eliminate this by using the chartered municipalities as voting districts.
• The current Governor of North Carolina maintained control of the election process that closed voting locations in a county that polls showed him trailing in. An independent election committee as part of a state’s Judiciary branch would curtail these kind of abuses.
• In Georgia write-in votes for the challenging candidate were thrown out for typos while a crooked operative illegally hand delivered hundreds of votes for the incumbent. Pre-printed ballots with a return address would minimize this attack on Democracy.
• Mitch McConnell’s position on making Election Day a national holiday so more people can vote? “Just what America needs, another paid holiday and a bunch of government workers being paid to go out and work for, I assume, our folks — our colleagues on the other side, on their campaigns,” he said. So, instead, let’s have an election weekend when most people are off from work anyway.

Too much of the current conversation is about Donald Trump. I understand this squeaky wheel getting most of the grease thing. But we need to realize that his position is maintained by Mitch and Republican Senators preferring to betray our country to favor the votes he can get them rather than their Constitutional responsibility of providing a check and balance against the Executive Branch. If we think of Trump as the pneumonia that kills most HIV patients we can address voting rights as the disease it is and treat Trump as the symptom that he is. If we remove the artificial stifling of voters’ rights then we receive a truer sense of the Will of the People.

The Constitution starts with the words “We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union…” Well that work has not ended. It is we the people, the voters, who have the power to make us a more perfect union. Something our country so desperately needs right now. We do that by voting. To have that voting power diluted by the greed and avarice of our duly elected representatives is a betrayal of our trust and as unconstitutional as unconstitutional can get.