Monitoring election practices important

n years past I used to scan media accounts of election campaigns around the world that featured widely acknowledged miscounts, intimidation at polling centers, and similar practices.

I felt, perhaps a little smugly, that we were lucky to live in a country where “one-man one vote” was the law of the land and our elected officials had been chosen fairly. The 2000 presidential race shook me out of my complacency. A Supreme Court ruling determined the winner by refusing to allow a re-examination of Florida’s voting records.

Now it is election time again.

The question is no longer just “How will people vote?” Again, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling that declared corporations to be the equivalents of people, we have seen many millions of dollars injected by major corporations and the PACs they control into this year’s race.

We are also seeing a relative newcomer, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) reaching into state legislatures with suggested wording for laws that will impose new voting restrictions aimed supposedly at preventing fraud, though evidence of voting fraud ranges from rare to non-existent.

Lest this rash of laws involving a good many states be seen as spontaneous acts of caution, the wording of each one mimics ALEC’s position papers to a remarkable degree. Voting restrictions enacted into law in these states, not surprisingly, will hit the elderly, black and Hispanic communities, and young people disproportionately hard.

These include photo-IDs and birth certificates, even from people who have been voting at the same locations for years.

ALEC’s founder has been quoted in explanation of its policies: “Our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” For me, that says it all.

Finally, in a number of states we see that redistricting has been used deliberately to deprive representatives of their customary constituencies, thereby insuring their defeat.

I think we have to do more than just watch the election results.

It is imperative that we support efforts by groups that are monitoring election practices this year and bringing suits, where necessary, where election infractions have been found.

Grace Siler

Bonners Ferry