“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.” 

Ayn Rand

While there is no explicit language in the Constitution guarantying “right to vote”, President Lyndon Johnson recognized it as one of our nation’s most cherished liberties, “This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless.”  This sentiment is reinforced by voting rights affirmatively granted in the 14th, 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments.

In the wake of Trump’s reelection defeat, his year-long “big lie” campaign that he could only lose if there was massive voter fraud, the mob he and his sycophants unleashed on the Capitol on January 6th and Republicans politicians terrified the former president will campaign against them, Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country have enacted a slew of laws … solutions is search of a problem … to make voting more difficult for many, particularly those who are most likely to vote Democratic.

Without proof, they claim these bills will improve election security and reverse changes enacted to assist voters during the COVID-19 pandemic and eliminate claims of significant election fraud.

Despite rampant Trump-inspired conspiracy theories, impartial recounts in several “swing states” validated the original vote counts, the non-Partisan Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee & Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency concluded, “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,” and the president’s Attorney General stated, "we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."

Among the more dangerous for our democracy and shameful provisions in many of these bills are:

Language permitting partisan legislators to overturn the awarding of electoral votes if they don’t like or disagree the results of the popular vote as counted by non-partisan election officials; and

Purging the voter registration rolls, often for the failure of a duly registered voter to vote in two, or some other artificial number, of election cycles.

However, the right to vote also gives citizens the right not to vote, particularly if none of the candidates on the ballot are representative of the policies and type of government in which they believe.

Because a voter chooses or is unable to vote in one, two or more elections, cannot justify their names being purged from voter rolls without limited just cause; such as the voter has:

  • Permanently moved their legal address out of the precinct or county where they are registered;
  • Died;
  • Been deemed mentally incompetent by appropriate medical authorities; or
  • Been incarcerated in a state where such individuals lose their right to vote.

No governmental agency or entity should have the unilateral right to purge any voter’s name without affirmatively demonstrating they fall into one of the above categories!

Despite their charades, the real reason Republicans are pushing voter suppression laws is captured in the words of two vocal supporters to such actions:

  • Defending the Texas legislation, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s words speak volumes, “We will keep this a red state.  And in 2024, Trumpism will rise again.”  
  • Then there is the agitator-in-chief, former president Donald Trump, who is on the record saying if more people vote, Republicans will suffer and if the 2020 levels of voter turnout were a bell weather for future elections, "You'd never have a Republican elected in this country again."

Let us never forget, "The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter." – Dwight D. Eisenhower.