Try to find a
better place but soon it's all the same
What once you thought was a paradise is not just
what it seemed
The more I look around, I find, the more I have
to fear[i]
I’m
unwilling to live in fear. That is a hard resolution to keep. The last four
years mystified me, but the last couple of months were incongruous. I never was
afraid of losing our democracy. Sedition was one of those things in The Constitution that you didn’t spend a lot of time studying. Who could have
imagined an armed and planned assault on our Capitol by other citizens? Then,
we watched it happen. That was nearly two months ago and I’m still writhing.
Months
before the election, Trump convinced his followers that the only way he could
lose the election was if the process was rigged. He repeated over and over that
early voting and vote by mail would be fraudulent. He claimed irregular vote
counting and called election officials biased. The fix was in!
Too
many people believed him and convinced themselves that he could not lose. He
called his base of supporters to Washington to protest the election, and they
came. He urged them to march on the Capitol, and they did. He told them that
the Vice President could nullify the election, and they believed him.
When
Pence announced that the constitution didn’t allow him to change the election,
they called him a traitor. They raised a gallows in front of the Capitol. Their
insurrection rose to the level of sedition, in the name of democracy. Hundreds
of people were injured, many died, still, others committed suicide. Culprits are
still being identified and rounded up for prosecution.
The
House of Representatives impeached the President a second time. The Senate
acquitted him a second time. Then some senators who had just voted to acquit talked about how guilty the President was, how he had encouraged the armed
insurrection, how he continued to relish the actions of his followers. They
knew he was guilty; they voted “not guilty.”
State
Party leaders censured Republican Representatives who voted to impeach and
Senators who voted “guilty.” Pennsylvania Senator Toomey voted to convict
Trump, which he described as “doing the right thing.” It resulted in quick censure
from county party leaders. One, Dave Ball, went so far as to state on
television, “We did not send him there to
vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing … We sent
him there to represent us.” The implication was that the party sent the
Senator to Washington to represent the party, not the people.
James Madison
noted, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the
abuses of power.[ii] There
can be no illusions that there was goodness in the storming of the Capitol in
an effort to overturn an election. It was a planned abuse of liberty in a free
country. What is unfathomable is that so many consider it “no big deal.” The
divide is wide, the divide deep. The rot drains oxygen from the soul of the
nation. Our freedom to vote and for our vote to matter is under attack.
We
never know when something will be the last.[iii] We
never know when our last vote will be our last one; ask the people of Germany,
Italy, and Spain if they thought their last vote was their last one. Is last
November the last time we voted in a free and open election? Will it be the
next one, or the one after that?
This
year legislators in 43 states introduced 253 bills to reduce voting access.[iv] One
state has a bill that allows the legislature to pick the Presidential Electors
irrespective of the vote of the people.[v] Others
plan increased Gerrymandering to control voter results. Still others have bills
to reduce voting hours, early voting, voting locations, and drop boxes for
ballot return. Many are considering eliminating votes by mail except for serious
health conditions. All of the voter suppression bills were introduced,
supposedly, to help ensure that citizens believe that a valid election took place.
Too many people ignore these efforts to abuse liberty.
Will
state legislatures gerrymander the voting districts so that elections aren’t the
free expressions of voter will? We don’t know. Will state legislatures squelch
easy voter registration, eliminate vote by mail, the convenience of voting in a
neighborhood precinct? Voting, the most sacred act of a free people is on the
brink of destruction by people who fear the loss of power. “The evil men do lives
after them; the good is interred with their bones.”[vi]
We now
know that the insurrection and storming of the Capital was not a simple case of
protesters with an unexpected surge of adrenalin. There was collusion among
Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Neo-Nazi cells, and other groups dedicated to the
overthrow of the democratic process. It was a planned insurrection, it was an armed
insurrection, and it swept others in its path. It was sedition.
How do
we protect the vote? In nearly half the states voter suppression is an active
movement, especially if the legislature holds veto-proof power. The only way to
ensure that voters can vote freely is to insist that the process be open to
all. Let’s start with the notion that all men are created equal. In our country, that means that anyone over the age of 18 should be able to vote, with very few
exceptions. What does free and open voting look like?
Registering
to vote should be easy. When a 16-year-old person applies for a driver’s
license they should automatically be registered to vote after their 18th
birthday. If a person hasn’t registered to vote but wants to vote, they should
be allowed to register on Election Day.
Securing
a ballot should be easy. Every state should send every registered voter a
ballot one month before Election Day.
Voting
should be easy. Voters should be able to return their ballots to a nearby dropbox, to the election office, or to the polls when they are open. Those who wish
to vote in person should have that opportunity. Many states have had
vote-by-mail for many years, so we know the process works.
Voting
districts should be rational. Each district should be fairly divided between
party affiliation, races, age groups, etc. Some states already have bipartisan
panels of unelected officials who draw the district boundaries. This reduces
the likelihood of obscene Gerrymandering.
Write
your state representative or state senator and tell them to ensure that freedom
to vote must be preserved for all people. Talk to your friends about the
un-American activity that some legislatures are using to reduce voter turnout,
to control vote results. Support campaigns against legislators who vote to
increase voter suppression; vote for their opponents.
Voting
in America is controlled at the local level, for the most part. County election
officials and state election officials administer the laws enacted by the state
legislatures. It is at the local levels that voter suppression is taking place,
under the national radar, and that is where it must be preserved.
[i] Where Do We Go From Here – Chicago – 1969 Recording
[ii] James Madison – The Federalist, No. 63, 1787
[iii] Timothy Snyder – On Tyranny – Tim Duggan Books, 2017
[iv] Brennan Center for Justice, New York University – January 26, 2021
[v] The Constitution allows state legislatures to determine how Electors are chosen. It does not assume that that would happen after an election.
[vi] William Shakespeare – Julius Caesar – Act 3 Sc 2
