We are about a week out from the election and things are still turned upside-down and backward and inside-out and whatever else you can think of when it comes to what happened on election day. We have heard accusations of fraud, dead people voting, ballot tampering and so much more. One side wants to declare victory and basically has already. The other side is challenging the integrity and is pressing legal actions.
None of this is unprecedented. Bush v. Gore wasn’t settled until Dec. 12, 2000. So, anyone who is telling anyone to stop the debate and just accept the results needs to study history.
We are a nation of laws. We claim to the world to be the beacon of light for what right looks like and yet we hear so many claims of fraud. We need to find a way to clean up the system and yet make it possible for people to vote.
I still remember the news coverage of 2005 when so many Iraqis were proudly displaying their purple thumbs as they finally got a chance to cast a ballot.
The Supreme Court of the United States has even ruled that Voter ID is perfectly legal yet so many people want to challenge its use. Often the argument is not everyone has an ID, yet the list continues to grow of things that are daily occurrences that require an ID, such as, purchasing over the counter medication.
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I ask you this. How can we have any confidence in our elected officials, if we can’t trust the election system? How can we, the beacon of light, tell others to implement safe-guards for elections when we don’t follow them ourselves?
This election will be settled, but it’s not yet.
Kenneth Toole
Baxter
