Excuse Me, But Who Made You God?

If I had been born long ago in Scandinavia, I most likely would have been a “shieldmaiden”. My mom said I have a contrary streak about 2 miles wide and about that deep. It’s probably a good thing I never went into the military. I was just one of those children that when told I couldn’t do or have something wanted to know ‘why’ and ‘when’ I could. I have never accepted no for an answer very well. Typically, telling me no only makes me work harder to get what I want. Call that whatever you want to. I call it either “Determination” or “Persistance”. But I never stop.

That’s why these restrictive voting laws are on my “List”. It’s similar to the “Bad Christmas Card” list. See what you think.

1. Voter Registration Laws – On the surface of this, not a bad idea. You should be able to vote if you are a lawful citizen of THIS country, reside in THIS state, reside in THIS county, and so forth. Okay, that works. The issue that most people have with voter registration is how far in advance of voting do you need to register? Hmmm. Now you have to make a decision. Same day? Some places allow that. At least a month before the date of the election? Six months? And then you get into how does a person PROVE citizenship? Residency? What documents do you need? What if you were born at home and do not HAVE a birth certificate? What if you live with someone else and you do not have utility bills or tax bills in your name? (Some older people and disabled people do not.)
2. Identification Laws — Another “sounds okay” but … kind of thing. Most of us have a Georgia Driver’s License so we just do not think much about it. You can also use military ID, passports, federal ID, a state-issued ID for employment in a state job, and an ID issued by the DOT for those people who just need an ID. Here’s the catch on this (and you knew I would have one). You have to have an ADDRESS and it has to be a physical address, not a post office box (although that can be added), for this to be issued. Some people do not have one. RUT ROH. There are all kinds of reasons for this state of being, but homelessness is front and center. Now what are you going to do? Well, the Republicans would tell us that these people don’t know what’s going on, don’t work and pay taxes, so they don’t need to be voting. Excuse me, but exactly how does that make them any less citizens? I can point out quite a few taxpayers who do know what’s going on who probably need to be DISQUALIFIED from voting because they have some of the kookiest theories I’ve ever heard. These homeless people are just as good as they are. Give me a break.
3. “Election Security Laws” — This is one of my favorites because they think they are being so underhanded and so devious and they really aren’t. It’s like the little kid hiding their English peas under the far side of their dinner plate where they can’t see them, telling mama they did so eat them all, but mama can see all those peas because she’s sitting directly across the table. Only this would be funny if it wasn’t so damned mean and rascist. Unfortunately, it’s both.
   • Dropboxes — These are big boxes built like mailboxes only, if anything, more secure. They are meant to be absolutely impregnable to the attacks of anyone who wants to get inside to the ballots without the proper security lock clearances. I don’t know everything about them and the public is not supposed to know everything. That’s the point. If we did, the “bad guys” would also know and they’d be busy figuring out how to defeat the security measures. That doesn’t bother me one whit. What DOES bother me is this: the whole idea of the dropboxes was to ALLOW people who work odd hours and long tours that can take them out of state to vote via absentee ballots and drop them off in a secure location and go on about their business. Maybe they are long-haul truck drivers who go coast-to-coast, airline pilots who fly overseas, caregivers who tend sick people for days on end, or somebody who has family who needs them out-of-state. Who knows? But they want to vote and they know the mail might not make it. Here’s the kicker on this. The Republicans were the ones who came up with this to start with, but now they want to do away with it. Why? Because it most frequently helps which group of voters? You guessed. Black and poor people.
   • Absentee voting/Mail voting — This is another Republican measure first brought up in the Sonny Perdue era because they thought it would increase the number of GOP votes. They expanded the rules to allow for more people to be able to use the ballots by allowing the age range for the elderly to widen and allowing a couple more categories of people to be able to claim the exception. Then they said they would make it “no excuses” so that all you had to do was ask for the ballot and you got the privilege. They never dreamed that the Democrats would use it, too, I guess. Then we flipped the state for Biden and flipped both Senate seats. Oops. In 2021, they promptly tried to claw back most of what they had done with Absentee Voting. They had a big problem on their hands. Georgians LIKED IT. So the Republicans made some modifications to it. They’re irritating like beach sand in your swimsuit. That’s intentional and meant to make people give up and not vote. What did they do?
     • Unless you are elderly, you have to now RE-APPLY for an Absentee Ballot for EVERY ELECTION. (Primary, General, Run-off, special, etc.) That means you have to ask for an application within the special window, fill it out, mail it back in time, then wait for your ballot to arrive, fill that out, and return your ballot within the specified time frame EVERY TIME. It means that people have to pay scrupulous attention to the deadlines and schedules, pay extra for postage (essentially a poll tax which is an unnecessary burden on poor people and illegal as all heck), and the application and the ballot have to be filled out perfectly for their vote to be counted. It’s very clearly meant to be a way to keep Black, brown, poor, and disabled people from voting and as such, it is clearly a voter suppression tactic.
       • Plus, even if you ARE elderly, instead of applying once and done, now you have to REAPPLY every year. Previously, you applied and that was it. My husband and I thought we had things covered, but no. If that was our situation (and we’re college-educated and lucid folks, but we have aging parents of our own to take care of), just what in sorry heck happened to other people who didn’t know they had changed the law? Yep, a few more votes suppressed.
     • Handing out food and water to voters waiting in line — Now this one, in my opinion, and that of many others, is just plain petty and mean-spirited. The reason is that the people who were doing it were non-partisan groups like the NAACP, church, civic organizations, Women’s League of Voters, and so on. They cannot, by law, advocate for one party or candidate. If they do, they will lose their 501(c)(3) certificate and tax exemption status. That’s the last thing they want to do. Who were they giving water and snack to? People standing in line who were waiting to vote for HOURS in 85-90 degree heat. Some of them waited for 4-8 hours. Where did this happen? Ah, now we get to the crux of the issue! In predominately Black, immigrant-heavy, poor or lower-middle-class areas where Democrats historically do very well. These groups were being kind and compassionate and were only interested in getting people to vote. They may or may not have had opinions of their own about the particular election. Now would they have done the same thing if the voters were inclined to vote Republican? Undoubtedly so. Their aim is to Get Out The Vote. That’s it. As I stated above, they are non-partisan.
   • Oversight by the General Assembly of the State Election Board, etc. — This one sticks in my throat really bad. It reeks of Jim Crow 2.0. What this does is take the oversight of the Election Board back out of the Secretary of State’s office and give it to the General Assembly just in case we get a Democratic Secretary of State (because who knows what kind of mischief that person could get into, I guess??) It’s really that blatant since our current SOS, Brad Raffensperger has done nothing out of the way. In fact, his handling of the whole situation of the 2020 Presidential election was terrific. I have no issues with it. Then the General Assembly pops up with this jewel and stabs him in the kidneys with this. There’s more to it. Buckle up, buttercups.
     • If, in the opinion of the STATE election board or, apparently, the General Assembly, a particular county’s Election Board’s actions during an election or the results of an election are not acceptable, they can remove that entire election board and replace them with people of their choosing. Notice two things here: #1 “…results are not acceptable” and #2 “..replace them with people of their choosing.” I want to know who is going to make the call that those results are not “acceptable” and in what way. Because the voters decided to elect Democrats? Women? Blacks? Latinos? LGBTQ+ Somebody who is opposed to whatever industry the General Assembly wants to ramrod into the country? What is your criteria? Because this sounds awfully lot like an authoritarian rule or what the “massa” on the plantation wanted the slaves to do. The second part is just as bad. The voters of a county have a say in who is on their Election Boards. But this would mean the STATE would just drop in their pick of somebodies to run that county’s elections. Now I don’t care which way you vote, that ought to rile you up but good. Does me.

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My Motivation For This?

I grew up during the time of the Civil Rights Movement, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., the Voting Rights Act, Vietnam, Berlin Wall, the Southland riots for Rodney King in Los Angeles, and all the rest. I lived through desegregation. The church I grew up in had KKK members on the board of Elders and Deacons. I do not want to go back to those days. People were mean to other people. The problem was that other people knew it and covered up for them. I did not understand it then and I refuse to understand it now.

I have always believed in the power of participatory government and that if people speak up about what they need and want, other people are more likely to help them out. But you have to vote. You have to know what the issues are. You have to contribute with your time and money. Democracy is not a “sit on your ass” and hope something good happens kind of government. You have to work at it or you will lose it.

It is disturbing to me that anyone would make it HARDER for fellow citizens to vote. Yet this is what our Republican-led General Assembly has done. We have had very, very little in the way of voter fraud (all of it was people trying to vote Republican ironically), and the one and only instance of attempted election fraud was the woman in Coffee County who made the election machine available to the fake auditor illegally and compromised their equipment trying to find more votes for Trump.

The real irony? Very few races other than the Presidential election were challenged. Now you’d think that if the Democrats were going to hijack one, we’d go all out and hijack at least the Senate and House races and maybe the Governor races. Maybe more. Like going into a jewelry store and taking only one gem. What’s the point?

I want to flip the District 29 State Senate seat. This is but one reason. If you’ve been reading my posts, you know other issues that concern me such as our infrastructure, education, healthcare, affordable housing, and getting the kinds of industries into our region that will sustain us over the long term. It won’t be easy, but no job worth doing will be. I’m asking for your support as well as your vote.

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