Counting the Vote

The word "treason" has been thrown out a lot during 2020's election cycle. It is not an idle verbal threat. Some people have actually been shot or hung for treason here in the United States. I was thinking about what treason might look like in a modern democracy. Here's the definition of "democracy": a form of government in which the people have the authority to choose their governing legislators. Who people are and how authority is shared among them are core issues for democratic theory, development and constitution. Cornerstones include freedom of assembly and speech, inclusiveness and equality, membership, consent, voting, right to life and minority rights.  

I highlighted just one word that is important to our democracy at this very moment in history. As an Army infantryman I served 20 years not because they paid me, not because I now get a retirement, and certainly not for a piece of cloth — that being the flag. It is a symbol, but the flag is not democracy. The key element of democracy is our ability as citizens to first have the right and duty to vote. That is the inalienable right that every citizen can claim and should claim. By all measures it looks like the voter turnout by percentage of the population has been the highest in the last 120 years. Yes, even before the 1918 flu pandemic we keep referring to.

What I find very disturbing, then, is a behavior that I will call treason — to see types of actions to suppress the vote or to take votes away from people who voted legally. 

These "so called patriots" have tried all of the methods listed below to deny people's vote to be made and then also be counted. If you think "the end justifies the means" then you are living in the wrong nation, "under God, with liberty and justice for all." Re-examine your thinking and actions. Stop reciting those words, because your actions don't match the pledge. The flag stands for the right to vote and have that vote counted!

— Filed suit so late-arriving ballots wouldn’t be counted.

— Sued to stop people from returning ballots in a drive-through setting.

— Sued to limit the days of early voting.

— Sued to disqualify ballots if a signature didn’t exactly match the one on file from years earlier.

— Restricted ballot drop sites to disadvantage large counties full of voters of the opposite party.

— Purged eligible voters, particularly minority voters, from the rolls, and imposed ID requirements and restricted voting locations and hours in ways that disproportionately disenfranchise non-white voters.

— Fought to keep ex-felons from getting their voting rights restored.

— Fought to keep Native Americans on reservations from voting.

— Harassed voters returning their ballots by videotaping them.

— Encouraged armed militias to patrol polling places.