It’s the Right to Vote. It's Not an Entitlement

       Is the Voting Rights Act in danger of being overturned or weakened? The very thought of this moves me to tears.  For my entire adult life, I have taught young people about our country’s struggle to deal with the issue of race, partly because I was so oblivious to and ignorant of anything about it until the violence engendered by the Civil Rights Movement came into my living room via John Cameron Swayze, Peter Jennings, and Walter Cronkite.


      The right for African-Americans to vote was paid for in blood. Philadelphia, Mississippi, 1964: Klansmen murdered James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.  One of the murderers was the deputy sheriff.  Why were they killed?  Because they were registering Blacks to vote. 

       On Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, I and many others in America watched in horror as the televised airing of The Nuremberg Trials was interrupted to show the horror of unarmed men and women being gassed and beaten as they crossed the Pettus Bridge in Selma. Alabama, peacefully marching to ask for the right to vote.  Current Congressman, John Lewis of Georgia, led that march and was severely beaten for the effort.

       The attitude of some on the Supreme Court is that these two events among so many others are “oh so yesterday.”  And then there’s Justice Scalia.  He actually stated that the Voting Rights Act is a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.”

       Mr. Justice Scalia: Voting is a right and the responsibility of a citizen.  Your seeing it as an entitlement is utterly appalling!

       Chief Justice Roberts made comments leading me to wonder if he was asleep while some Red State legislatures did everything they could to disenfranchise the minority and youth vote, constituencies that turned out for Obama in 2008.

       The Supreme Court sits in D. C. where some waited in line for up to four hours to vote.  In Miami, FL, the average wait time was 90 minutes.  That was the average.  Many in minority districts waited well over 4 hours to vote.

       Before 2012, most of us voted with any ID or none if the poll worker knew the voter.  But in 2012, voting for some became much more difficult. Nineteen states tried to make it very hard for minorities and the young to vote; certain restrictions for registration or  for re-registration made it more than difficult or even impossible for some to overcome. Because of the Voting Rights Act, these new laws were blocked in some—but not all—states.  And it’s not over.  As the Court deliberates, other states are considering new ways to disenfranchise some voters.

       Just last month, the NC legislature passed a bill aimed at curtailing the college student vote.  In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that college students have the right to register and vote where they go to school. To get around this, NC is proposing to remove the tax exemptions for dependents who register to vote at any address other than their parent’s homes.  Why?  In 2008, college students in NC voted overwhelmingly for Obama, and Obama won the state.  And while he didn't win the state in 2012, he did take over %48 of the vote and a huge percentage of the youth vote.  So, the GOP legislature in NC wants to nip that in the bud if at all possible.  Taxing to prevent votes for Democrats is a tax the NC GOP can support.

       A democratic republic like the US is dependent upon making it possible for all citizens among the many constituencies to register and to vote.  Even after the Fifteenth Amendment was passed in 1870, in the Jim Crow South and some other parts of the country, whites only could vote.  We cannot be that kind of country again.  This is not an all-white country today nor has it ever been.  The Voting Rights Act further assured that the Fifteenth Amendment would be enforced.

       These legislators working to curtail the rights of some of these constituencies cannot call themselves patriotic, cannot wave the flag and declare themselves super Americans.  Their attempts to impede the voting rights of their fellow American citizens are anything but good for the country.   They claim to be preventing voter fraud, but that is a smoke screen.  Out of the 197 million votes cast for federal candidates between 2002 and 2005, only 40 voters were indicted for voter fraud, according to a Department of Justice study outlined during a 2006 Congressional hearing. Only 26 of those cases, or about .00000013 percent of the votes cast, resulted in convictions or guilty pleas.  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/voter-fraud-real-rare/story?id=17213376#.UXwih7WR_XQ 

       What about voter fraud even more recently?  What we can go by is the number of times that people have been prosecuted successfully for such crimes. And the number is     ridiculously low. You have a better chance of being hit by lightning than discovering an incident of polling place fraud.  [Read more Q&As in U.S. News Weekly, now available on iPad.]

       It is my fervent hope that the Supreme Court can see its way to the truth about what is really going on and keeps the law that protects us from the machinations of those trying to keep all the electoral power for their own kind.  Remember, what goes around politically comes around.  The GOP would not like it if Democratic Party controlled legislators enacted laws to curtail Republican voter turnout, and I would be just as unhappy about those attempts to disenfranchise anyone.  Our country’s well-being depends on free and fair elections.  Voting should be encouraged.  It should be made more, not less, possible for all eligible to cast a ballot.  Candidates then have to make their cases to all voters and to win on their merit, regardless of party affiliation.  Our country will be the better for it.