It Can't Happen Here....

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It can't happen here, in little ol' Fargo...until it does. How about your hometown?

After the debacle of Florida 2000 and the chicanery in Ohio in 2004, the issue of voting and voting rights has been a hot button for me. So I've read the reports of the Indiana picture I.D. and the Texas "voting fraud" and the proposed Missouri voting rights changes--all targeting likely Democratic constituencies--and been, well, too complacent about good ol' Fargo, North Dakota.

After all, our 80- and 90-year-old nuns don't have to worry about being denied the right to vote in North Dakota for want of a driver's license with picture i.d.

But it turns out, maybe they...and other elderly and disabled and economically disadvantaged persons do need to worry...about getting to the polls.

Here's the backstory: some months back, the powers-that-be decided to remove polling places from our neighborhood schools [homeland security, anyone?] and simultaneously consolidate all the polling places into larger multi-precinct voting centers.

In rural North Dakota, that can mean now-daunting distances for people to travel to vote. In Fargo, that may mean the polling places have moved just a few blocks, as is the case in my neighborhood.

But a Sunday letter to the editor, "Fargo's precinct changes unwelcome" in our local newspaper, The Forum, brought me up short. Bruce D. Brovold reminds that for some, a few blocks change [from the community room of the high rise for elderly and disabled to the Civic Center] can be as daunting as rural miles. [unfortunately, the letter is not available on the website at the time I write this]

"...once again the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the handicapped have to be put out in order to save a little money... To move the voting site to the Civic Center is not a long way for most people, however for the elderly, disabled and handicapped, it could just as well be 100 miles.

I would hope the election officials reconsider this move next year, after they discover the lost percentage of voters who will not vote in this year's election in this precinct, compared to past years."

I hope even more that whether we're seeing here the law of unintended consequences in action or the chicanery of partisan politicking to squelch voting groups, that those of us committed to progressive change recognize we cannot afford to be complacent. Not anywhere.

And that we can't just wait 'til Election Day in November to go and try to vote. We must ramp up now.

In Fargo, for example, heavily funded campaigns are pushing a big business agenda to elect, on June 10, a city commission candidate and to advocate for a sales tax to support "economic development." Once again the working class is being asked to subsidize the uberclass. Whatever the merits of the case for or against doing that, the real question is:

If a group of voters is disenfranchised,
is the "common good" for all of us being served?

If that matters to you, don't wait for election day and stroll into your voting center, join the process now. Work in the primaries, work in the city elections, work for the campaigns that represent your values. Talk up the candidates who deserve our support.

And every election day, don't just vote for yourself, help the other guy vote, too.

[Cross-posted today at North Decoder]