"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."
"Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having your legs cut off, and then being condemned for being a cripple. It means seeing your mother and father spiritually murdered by the slings and arrows of daily exploitation, and then being hated for being an orphan."
(Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.)
That man could write, right?
Okay. Remember 2006? An election in Iraq? And a proud purple finger? It was a human demonstration of what we’re were “fighting for” in Iraq. We were spreading democracy, letting liberty and freedom take root, and for the first time the Iraqi people were getting a chance to vote in a democratic election in their own country. And vote they did, on simple paper ballots, about 8 million strong, almost 60% of the population, risking their lives to stand in line and cast their ballots. The final step -- an election worker marked the voters hand with indelible ink, to prevent repeat voting. The pictures were moving -- proud, defiant, purple ink-stained fingers. Proof of the Iraqis taking a major step towards self-determination.
So. Liberty. Freedom. Democracy. One person, one vote, no repeats. And the votes counted accurately. And the will of the people is heard. Sounds good, right? Well, why are we spreading these innovative concepts to other countries, and simultaneously tweaking laws in our own country to make it more difficult for our own citizens to vote? And more difficult to count the votes accurately?
From state to state, even district to district, different rules, deadlines, and voting methods apply. Some of us will cast a paper ballot; some will feed a ballot card into a computer device, or touch a screen to register our vote, or use the old mechanical lever machine. Some states require you to bring a voter registration card, some ask only for signature verification; others require a state-issued photo ID. Random and confusing proof-of-identification laws have sprung up all over the country. And polling hours vary widely: in New York you can vote from 6AM-9PM; in Hawaii it’s only from 7AM-6PM; in Illinois its 6AM-7PM; North Carolina 6:30-7:30. What happens if you can’t get there in time? If our citizens can get a slushy 24 hours a day from any 7-Eleven, can't we extend the hours, or provide 2 days for people to vote?
Proper identification is necessary -- voter fraud can happen. The rumors of lost and found ballot boxes in Chicago during the 1960 presidential election are legendary. And in the 2000 presidential election weird things happened: tens of thousands of eligible Florida voters were falsely said to have felony convictions and purged from the rolls; ballots with “hanging chads” were questioned or eliminated; voting machines malfunctioned and some polling places never opened. The system failed. The Supreme Court stopped the count and declared the winner. And you know the rest.
The various states new voter ID initiatives have the potential of denying millions of citizens their most basic right. A photo ID seems easy enough to have in this day and age, but if you're elderly, or don't drive, you'll need a state-issued ID. And to get that you need a birth certificate. And if you don't have one, you have to pay to get a copy. And if you can't pay, or can't get the copy in time, or if your photo ID isn't from the same state as your college...get the picture? If over 60 million of us can phone in votes for our "American Idol," it's crazy not to make voting for our public officials simple, accessible, and consistent.
At the very least, when the entire country is voting for the office of President of the United States, the entire country should vote on as identical a ballot, under as identical conditions, proof of ID, etc., as possible. And get this: more people will vote. And anyone who doesn't want more people to vote, in my opinion, is anti-American.
Some states are taking positive steps: in Vermont, people with disabilities can vote more easily by using a special phone at the polling place. And in Wyoming, qualified voters with the proper identification can actually register to vote as late as Election Day. But right now, in 2012, there are citizens (mostly African-American, by the way) in Michigan whose right to vote is being threatened. There's something called an Emergency Manager Law that gives the governor the right to suspend local elections and make his own appointments. The Voting Rights Act passed forty-seven years ago, but if anyone's ability to vote is threatened, everyone's freedom and liberty is threatened as well. We cannot go backward. Why can’t we make voting as simple as a paper ballot and a purple finger?
"The conservatives who say "Let us not move so fast," and the extremists who say, "Let us go out and whip the world," would tell you that they are as far apart as the poles. But there is a striking parallel: They accomplish nothing; for they do not reach the people who have a crying need to be free."
(Why We Can't Wait, 1964)
