Suppressing voters

VOTING FRAUD: A Disastrous Scourge

We are on the brink of national catastrophe, a scourge that could devastate our democracy. We are faced with the specter of voter fraud that hordes, a veritable multitude of non-Americans will descend on voting booths and, gasp, sully the core of our republic. Or at least, so a large segment of politicians and the public agree. In order to defend against this mockery of America, they have proposed a variety of preventive measures to ensure the purity of our ballot.

You may remember, or at least know about the south which devoted much of its energy to keeping black people in their place. Share-cropping, a system of bondage labor with a plantation store to reap further profits, efficiently kept black citizens from rising out of poverty. But, you will argue, they could vote and change things for themselves; could they not organize for political purposes? Well, ignorance and the Klan put quietus to such organization, but they could still vote . . . except for the poll tax and literacy tests which essentially eliminated the black American from the polls. Poor people could not afford the poll tax and with education for blacks essentially non-existent passing a literacy test became a hurdle over which they could not leap. Ugly stuff but it surely is done with, eliminated by an enlightened society. Alas not. The reality of what is now called “voter suppression,” is very much a part of our political environment. The whole point is to eliminate particular classes of voters; sometimes it is done legally and sometimes not so with concern for ethicality totally defenestrated. (See, you failed the test.)

Still, it seems reasonable to require a picture ID in order to vote. Is that not that requirement within the pale? Should we not be sure of whom it is who casts a vote? After all, who doesn't have such a document? Who? The poor. It costs money to own a car and costs money to have a license; the poor and disabled are less likely to have such financial encumbrances and whom do they vote for? Well, usually Democrats, as if that's a crime. Of course, such demands are not a poll tax, surely not, we no longer tolerate such things, do we?

Is that it? Sorry, there is more. In the recent recall election in Wisconsin, the Republicans knew they would lose so they put up a bogus slate of Democrats to lure unwary voters into voting for them, thus splitting the Democratic vote, ensuring a loss. It didn't work, most Democrats figured it out. Another trick was to call those likely to vote for recall and give them bogus deadlines to get their votes in. The idea was that the victims would think they had more time to cast their ballot until, horrors, they were too late. To some degree, such tricks worked but three state legislators were recalled in a partial Democratic victory.

How about getting people off the list of eligible voters? Here, I mean in Colorado, the Secretary of State has moved to get rid of “inactive” voters. Even though the word inactive is not defined by law, he asserted that missing one vote proved your inactivity so off you went. And, who are those who are more likely to miss a vote? You'd have to be a poor guesser not to have chosen the poor and the disabled. Never mind that they poor have a harder time taking off from work and that if they do they lose money, or that the disabled, well, they are disabled and voting is more problematic for them. Fortunately, saner heads have taken this matter to court and we might anticipate that such obvious voter suppression would be rejected. But, what if the judge is not of the saner sort?

Keep in mind that all of this is in service of keeping the multitude of the non-citizens from voting as if they are poised to do so. Are there examples of such? Of course, the system is not perfect, but aside from the few who sneak a ballot, our system works. In order for there to be a real, not fanciful problem, the non-citizens would have to organize, develop leaders and a cadre around which such a massive effort would gain coherence. Alas for the vote-suppressors, there is no such effort; if there were it would be legally flattened, turned into inconsequential mush. No, there is no voting disaster heading our way unless . . . unless it is that proposed by the suppressors. A pox on them.