Don’t lose your voice
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Editor,
Many of us have seen the countless reports of monkey business attempts to make it harder for some of us to vote. We have seen last-minute changes to the types of identification required to vote. This is demanded even though they cannot find a single case of in-person voter fraud to justify the changes. We have seen time-limit rule changes, polling place hour restrictions never before seen, packing the ballots of some districts with lots of unimportant referendums and demanding that each be printed in full on the ballot including all the pages of “legalese” for each. That particular tactic has caused the ballots in some districts to be up to 10 pages long. This will force voters to wait in long lines for hours for a chance to vote in a district that historically leans in the direction of one party, while across town, a district that usually leans to the other party has a short, quick-to-read ballot that makes voting there fast and easy.
Our right to vote is sacred. And it is only safe if we stand up, speak out and protect the rights of us all. Because if we allow any political interest group, lobby or rich legislators to steal our right to vote with some slick legal maneuvers, in an attempt to prevent some of us from voting, simply because they don’t like the way we might vote, then we are all made vote-less.
Look at so many countries today where people have either no right to vote or where they only have one choice, because no other choice will be heard or counted. We have a choice. We can let others take our voice away from us, or we can speak up.
We don’t have to choose between our safety and our right to say something. We only have to pick up a phone or write an email to our governors and state supreme court judges and tell them not to permit the legal games that are trying to inhibit the rights and access of some of us Americans to vote. They are easy to find at Montana.gov.
It doesn’t take courage to do this. It doesn’t take physical risk. It only takes a few minutes of our time, and it keeps others from stealing one of our greatest possessions: our voice.
Chris Goeckel
Polson
