(The third Blog in my series on Elections Matter)
Here’s a question whose answer has significant ethical ramifications.
What do the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, New Hampshire, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin all have in common?
Answer: All of them have passed laws to make it more difficult for people to vote, especially minorities, senior citizens, and youth.
What is more, each of these states have been or still are under Republican control.
Supporters insist these new restrictions on voting will ensure that all elections are fair and honest. I have come up with a simple test in logic that can prove whether or not they actually believe what they say.
If the new voting laws are needed in order to ensure elections are fair and honest, then it necessarily follows that all elections up to this point have not been fair and honest.
Ergo, all politicians who support the new laws have no choice but to resign because by their own admission their election was NOT fair and honest.
If, on the other hand, they claim they were elected by a fair and honest vote, then that fact necessarily proves that there is NO need for any new laws.
Now, as of this writing, I have not heard of a single politician supporting these laws having resigned.
In other words, elections up to this point in the above named states have been fair and honest, leaving the inevitable conclusion that the new voting laws have a different motivation than protecting our voting system.
That “different motivation,” I submit, is that these new laws are a Republican effort to suppress any votes that are likely to go against them.
In other words, these laws are intended to rig elections.
That is just wrong. It is also un-American. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy. Trying to rig elections undermines that right, and, thus, our democracy.
Here is what the facts show. If we have a voting problem in this country, it has nothing to do with fraud. It has everything to do with apathy. We don’t need fewer people voting, we need more people voting.
Try telling that to Republicans.
This is not a partisan issue. This is an American issue. No one regardless of party or position should be permitted to create unnecessary barriers to voting.
We already have fair and honest elections in our country.
The question is whether or not we will continue to have them.
