Restricting the Right to Vote

 

 

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Suppose that Republicans in the Texas State Assembly decide that too many disabled persons are voting for Democrats in state and federal elections.  Their response is to pass a law that makes it harder for disabled persons in wheelchairs to vote by removing the ramps that make it easier for them to enter the polling places.  These lawmakers insist that they are not preventing handicapped persons from voting.  They say that this impediment to disabled voting is done only to guarantee  “election integrity.”  After all, they say, disabled persons in wheelchairs can still vote if they can find an alternative way to get into the polls (perhaps by bringing friends with them who could carry them up the stairs).  If it is harder to get to the polls, then this shows how serious they are about voting! 

Of course, this is a hypothetical.  ADA requirements will not allow Republicans to tamper with ramps for the handicapped.  But there are no relevant differences between my imaginary example and what Republicans in Texas and other states are now doing to restrict voting.  

Begin by asking "Why are these Republican lawmakers restricting voting days and hours, prohibiting absentee ballots to be sent to all registered voters, and limiting drive-up voting, if they have no evidence of fraudulent voting in the 2020 election?"   The answer is that they want to reduce the number of Black, Brown, minority and poor people from voting.  Instead of convincing these people that they should cast their votes for Republicans, then (as in my analogy) they have chosen the tactic of making it harder for them to vote at all! 

President Biden has called the Republican efforts to restrict the vote as “undemocratic.”  He is right. The very heart of a democracy lies in the right of all citizens to vote.  But the right to vote is nothing but a series of empty words if we allow Republican lawmakers to put up extraneous barriers to prevent the exercise of this  precious right.  If they succeed, then our democracy will  surely erode and our country will have taken another step toward autocracy.