In a Democracy, the basic element
to participate in government is a vote. This “right” to vote in America
was a strange thing that hadn’t occurred in history; suddenly everyone had the
right to vote in this new free country. Or did they? At the start of our
countries history only white, male, land owners were aloud to vote. This
restricted the voice of the people and made for a system where the lawmakers
were directly making laws for one group of people, instead of the country as a
whole. Throughout America ’s
history there has been a fight for true equality at the ballot. This is shown
through movements to allow all men to vote, including blacks and other
minorities in the 1870s and on, movements for women to have the ability to vote
in the 1920s, and fair, equal voting rights movements still occurring today.
These equal rights were fought for from our countries origin, all the way to
today.
The
fight for equal rights at the polls continues today, and one battlefield for
this election cycle has been focused on the state Ohio .
This state is what is known as a swing state, meaning that it has a historical
record of voting for both parties candidates and in the past it has been a
close race in this state. Ohio
has put some limits on early voting, but the controversy is that the majority
of these limits are on known democratic counties and fewer limits on known
republican counties. These limits or fewer limits were passed by a republican
secretary of state, which is part of why these laws are being contested so
viciously by the Obama administration. The early voting limits in the
democratic counties are that they will only be open 8am to 5pm on weekdays and
early voting has been cut off three days before the election, which last
election cycle was a major weekend for these counties, while republican
counties will be open later hours and on weekends as well. These restrictions
don’t seem fair to the American public and they don’t seem equal to all, which
is what we as a country have been fighting against since our independence.
Another
battleground state in America
today is Pennsylvania , which similar to Ohio
is a swing state. Pennsylvania
has a new and controversial law requiring voter identification every time you
vote. Now this law may not seem like anything special and useful to fight
against voter fraud, but fraud is very rare and this law is a bit overreaching.
This new law is being compared to poll taxes because the voters in a lot of
cases have to pay for these “free voter ids”, whether its sending money for
their birth certificate to provide verification to get the id, or simply they
have to pay for the id. Also another controversy with it is that it targets
minorities, immigrant, and poor voters which predominantly vote democrat. Also
the lawmakers, who were republicans, tried to brush over the importance of this
law to decrease the democrat vote in this all important battleground state. So
naturally democrats are up in arms about this issue, believing that it is
catered to republicans and that the laws are trying to be stacked against the
democratic voters. There is some important issues on both sides of this
argument, and the outcome could change how other states voting laws affect the
American public and the future.
The
American public needs to pay attention to these states and these issues,
because they affect the nation and the outcome of these events may set the
precedent for the country for hundreds of years to come. The laws seem to favor
the republican parties in each state, or so the democrats are saying and on
some points they are correct. If these laws stand the republicans will benefit
from them in each state, which infuriates the democrats making them reach out to
their voters and promote working around or within the laws to get out and vote.
This conflict of parties and voting rights will be interesting to see the
outcome of, because it has the potential to shape new laws and reshape our
understanding of our rights. We as a group hope that these conflicts reach an
equal and fair agreement with the American public’s rights at the forefront of
the lawmakers’ minds and the implications that these laws could have for the
rest of the states.
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