Anyone paying attention to the news during the last election must know there were reports of people not able to vote in numerous states for a variety of reasons. Too few and hard-to-locate polling places or multiple ID requirements, like producing birth certificates or passports, put up barriers to voting. In some locations poll hours were shortened, or ballots ran out, or voters just gave up after waiting hours in long lines.
Gerrymandering to enhance or suppress a targeted voting demographic may not be the world's oldest profession, but in politics, it ranks high in the tricks of the trade. In 2013 the feds tackled a different issue and struck down several of North Carolina's blatant laws that had voters jumping through hoops. The state's rules were described as being designed with "surgical precision" to suppress African-Americans from voting.
Creating a phantom problem called "voter fraud" in which people supposedly vote multiple times, even across state lines, was a genius move of political manipulation. Much like yelling, "squirrel!" so your dog goes nuts trying to chase a fake varmint, voter fraud is an invisible villain that rarely materializes in the real world. Yet it has been used to justify a nationwide distraction causing legislators to foam at the mouth as they, hell-bent on spending millions, chase down these duplicitous voting ghosts.
On the website "Health of State Democracies," maps highlighting specific voting problems in individual states are extremely helpful in understanding what is actually going on across our country. On this site, check out "Participation in the Interstate Crosscheck System." An article in FreePress called "Killing Democracy by a Thousand Cuts" expands the explanation of this so-called crosscheck of voters.
Developed by Kansas' Secretary of State Kris Kobach to search voter files, this program has now spread to over 30 states, including Arkansas. If things weren't bad enough, this maneuver has been responsible for purging and disenfranchising thousands of legitimate voters. According to The Voting News, "One tally found that while Interstate Crosscheck has flagged 7.2 million possible double registrants, no more than four have actually been charged with deliberate double registration or double voting." Squirrel!
The tired challenge, "If we can go to the moon, we can (do whatever), "should deeply embarrass our technically advanced country because we can't seem to figure out one consistent, logical, and clean way to vote on a national scale. Fair and just elections are at the core of keeping our republic truly functional, yet critics of voter suppression, who try to bring these issues into the sunshine, often become targets for criticism rather than being praised for exposing the dark underbelly of suppression schemes. Many folks probably just discount voting foul-ups as incompetence and par for a nation awash with non-standardized ways of casting and counting votes. We need instead to recognize chaos by design.
What should be a straightforward practice -- voting -- is instead an unfair, royal mess. If all's fair in love and war, and politics is a war for power, the power of the people can only peacefully exist with access and use of their rightful vote. We've long known and been frustrated about the power of unlimited, and now often unidentified, money in politics. We either have to exert power through sheer numbers on our election process for fairness, or take a back seat to the power of money to do with us as it wishes.
"Does your vote count?" will be the question of the evening at a free, public discussion at the Jones Center in Springdale from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Saturday, April 8. The program is sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Washington County; OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology; the Hispanic Women of Arkansas; and Ozark Indivisible.
To follow up this program, the League of Women Voters will host a panel discussion about voter accessibility at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 20, at the Fayetteville Public Library, Walker Room. The focus will be on voter issues in Arkansas, maintenance of voter rolls, voter suppression and how to increase participation in all aspects of our government.
This subject isn't a mindless walk in the park, but it may be key to whether or not we have a say about our lives as determined at the ballot box. And, it's vital in protecting our liberty and civil rights. Don't miss it.
Commentary on 03/28/2017