Voting 2014: Is it Reform or Re-Form?

A law passed by a Republican legislature in North Carolina cut back on early voting, restricted private groups from conducting voter-registration drives, eliminated election-day voter registration, and imposed one of the strictest voter ID rules in the United States, all without denying the Constitution's several provisions that citizens are entitled to vote....with certain potential restrictions such as age, criminal convictions, etc.

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Recently, in Georgia, other legislators changed that state's election laws to allow early voting on Sundays, and some churches have lined up buses out front to transport those who gathered to worship directly to their local polling places after their religious services.

It has been an interesting political warm-up to the 2014 midterm elections whose major focus has been on the struggle to keep or win control of the U. S. Senate and support or limit the powers of President Obama in the last two years of his presidency.

Now midterm elections traditionally have low voter turnouts compared to years in which American voters are voting for their choice of presidential candidates, and it is likely that 2014 will be no exception, but the battle for control of the Senate will likely depend on who does the best job of getting out the voters they need, given whatever obstacles stand in their way.

Settled in some states is the question of requiring that voters have valid identification to prove that they are actually American citizens and thus are entitled to vote. In other states that requirement does not exist and adds to the potential for voter fraud which has so influenced past elections.

Census figures showed that many eligible American citizens do not vote because (1) they are not interested in politics, (2) they do not think their individual vote will be significant, and (3) they don't believe that any of the various candidates will actually do anything meaningful once they are elected.

Watch for future elections to choose candidates who are elected by less than half of the voters who are eligible to vote, while of those who do vote more than half will vote for their party's candidates whether or not those candidates are actually best qualified to represent them,

Will ID's get carefully checked? Will voting machines malfunction? Has the vote been rigged anywhere? Will some write-in candidates win? Will seemingly popular referendums win? Will any do-nothing candidates actually lose? How many times will a close election be decided by a court this time around?

Are we still living up to the ideal of governments "of the people, by the people, and for the people"? Or, is it all just "politics, as usual"?

Lately we have been getting "government by default," government that is obviously not a government actually chosen by the people as much as it is one chosen by donor dollars, and whether or not a candidate looked electable and controllable.

Someday there will be a solution to the creation of fair and honest elections in which a majority of America's eligible voters participate. Until then? Keep your fingers crossed, and vote.

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Copyright 2014 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.