Perhaps one of the more iconic images of an assault on an individual’s freedom is a German Nazi demanding a photo ID of a person-of-interest. That gives one chills. But the fact of the matter is that it is usually the law breakers and spies who attempt to pass as someone else.
Law breakers can be political dissenters or even criminals. It’s up to unbiased judges and honest jury members to sort it out. And that isn’t a perfect process. But it is the best we can do today. However, it is not lawful for the police and other public officials to indiscriminately require someone to provide some form of identification. Or, at least, it didn’t use to be lawful in America.
Voter Identification is something different. Some would say that casting your vote is your public duty. Many have died just so you have the right in the United States of America to cast your vote freely, anonymously and without intimidation. So not voting could be taken as an affront to those patriots who died for your right to vote. But you also have the right to refrain from voting. That is also a right that was secured for you by those very same patriots.
The right to vote in an election that has an impact on one’s health and welfare is crucial to the success of a representative republic. You are selecting someone to represent you. So, proving who you are is a vital part of the process, perhaps the most vital part.
The process of voting should have only nine basic steps. 1. You show up to vote. 2. You identify yourself as a citizen. 3. You receive a ballot. 4. You make a selection by marking your ballot in private. 5. You cast your ballot by inserting it into an electronic scanner. 6. All the ballots are scanned and 7. sorted into groups depending on selections marked by each voter. 8. Then the votes in each group are tallied. 9. The group with the most votes wins. It seems simple enough.
Errors and corruption can be introduced into the selection grouping and the voting tally. However, those processes can, theoretically, be policed by impartial observors. But what about the voter? The Law says the voter must be a legal citizen of the United States. You can become a citizen just by being born in the United States or a territory of the United States. And you can become a citizen if you are a legal immigrant by going through the process of naturalization. There are other paths to citizenship as well.
The reason for making Citizenship the primary prerequisite for voting is that it is the citizens that pay taxes for the services of the Government. Those services were initially delineated in the Declaration of Independence, the U. S. Constitution and its Amendments. Originally, Government’s role was to provide for the defense and promote the general welfare. The Founders did not envisage a government that would provide the general welfare, so initially, the services provided by Government were limited. The Progressive movement expanded the role of Government to include providing social services for the citizens. Now they want to provide services to everyone who resides or enters the Country, not just the citizens who are paying taxes for those services. The actual allocation of those services is controlled by elected representatives, the Congress and the President. So, previously, if the citizens were disappointed by the actions of their representatives, they could change them out by electing new ones. That was the way it was supposed to work.
Today, some of those representatives led by Nancy Pelosi and a minority group of Socialists calling themselves Progressives are attempting to change the voting process so they can remain in power. One way to do that is to eliminate the requirements for the voters to prove who they are and to also show that they are legal citizens. So, the Democrats have set about to eliminate the process of voter identification or Voter ID by making it seem like the process is somehow racist. In truth, it once was very racist in the days of Jim Crow in the South. Now it isn’t. But Democrats love to relive that bit of history, covering over the Truth that their own party members were the actual racists who used voter intimidation and other means to limit the Black vote. That ended with the success of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. But that bit of history, the part about the Democrats creating the Jim Crow laws, is not taught today. Now they want to eliminate Voter ID.
You have to prove who you are every day throughout the world. The U. S. is no exception. There are passports, credit cards, social security numbers, driver’s licenses, even voter registration cards. Many of these forms of identification have photo IDs, signatures, fingerprints, and other biometric identifiers such as retinal scans. Even pets have embedded computer chips. So, proving who you are should be easy to do today. In fact, you lost your right to stay anonymous when you were born. The hospital recorded your fingerprints and footprints. Of course, all of these identifiers are subject to fraud. It’s what criminals do. But that can be curtailed somewhat with stiff sentences for those breaking the law. And voter identification does not mean the voter is mentally competent. At least, not yet.
The Presidential election of 2020 was heavily affected by mail-in ballots that were subject to fraud. Democratic Party operatives capitalized on the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 Pandemic to seize power. Ballots were mass mailed to addresses without verification, ballots were harvested and signatures were theoretically verified. It was all bogus. Now the Democrat Progressives want to enshrine the fraud by eliminating voter identification as part of the election process. They call it the “John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021” (or H. R. 4). This shameful Act passed the Congress on a party line vote and is now in the Senate. It is a disservice to all citizens and dishonors the heritage of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis.
The Pelosi Democrats must be thwarted in their effort. It will be up to real Americans, those honest Democrats, Independents and Republicans, to do that before the elections in November 2022. The fate of the Nation is in the balance.
The two most important considerations in holding an election are
1. Making it as easy as possible for legitimate voters to vote.
2. Ensure that the vote outcome is trustworthy and verifiable.
If the public does not trust the outcome of the election, problems will result, as in Kansas in 1854-1860. To make the vote outcome trustworthy, every single ballot must be tied, unambiguously, to a voter. Anonymous, unrequested, and unregistered, mass-mailed ballots, returned to unsupervised drive-in ballot collection centers do not meet that criteria. Neither do mail-in ballots that are not checked thoroughly or do not have unambiguous identification.
Well stated, Martin -- agree wholeheartedly. Just heard former VICE-president Biden say today that it's not who votes, but who counts the votes that matters. . . quoting Josef Stalin. Will midterm elections still use the same electronic voting equipment that was used in 2020? That could still be a big problem. MB