OPINION -- Who will lose the right to vote?
South Carolina lawmakers need to be careful for what they wish for as it pertains to Voting Rights.
There are moves in the SC Legislature - and in state legislatures throughout the nation - to roll back the “easy voting” methods of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Nation learned a serious lesson -- make it easier for people to vote, and more of them WILL vote.
That contributed to the change in leadership in the White House from President Donald J Trump to President Joe Biden. That and, well, Donald J Trump’s refusal to lead.
Donald J and Melania Trump refused to lead on wearing masks, in Pandemic Year 1 2020, and they refused to lead in showing the nation how to get vaccinated, in Pandemic Year 2 2021. Both “had Covid” but they still got vaccinated, just for good measure, quietly in January, 2021. No pictures. No statements. No “you should not fear getting vaccinated, too.” No encouragement whatsoever. In fact, under SC’s vaccine roll out, Mrs. Trump would not have qualified in Phase 1a - she was too young. Donald J Trump since he is older than 70 would have qualified for a shot - if he had been living in The Palmetto State.
As a result of this failure to lead, more than a Half Million Americans died from COVID-19 on President Trump’s watch. He should never be forgotten for that.
Back to voting ... I have voted in every Presidential Election since McGovern, and I plan to keep on voting until I die. Some day I will not be physically able to walk into the polls and cast my vote - and that is when the current plans to cancel my vote, as an absentee or mail-in, will cost me my vote. That is when the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 will not longer work for me.
State lawmakers will DEMAND that I walk into the polling place and show my ID (probably two IDs by that time) and cast my vote on some other voting machine besides Dominion. And that is the moment, the precise moment, when I will know exactly what people of color felt during Jim Crow.
That will be The New Jim Crow.
And, if will affect people of age, people more likely to vote conservative -- they will be the ones disenfranchised (the former president himself uses mail-in ballots to vote at his home in Palm Springs, Florida). Once that happens, the progressives will be swept into office. My generation and our ideas will be gone, the new ideas will gain traction. The Vote of 2020 cast a wave activism in this country, and it is coming to “cancel culture” every Racist idea we ever had in America.
Oh, there will be push-back. Some will even argue to push the right-to-vote age to 25. What do young people know anyway? They haven’t even played with a Mister Potato Head - much less know why his name needs to be left alone.
It is going to be a tall task to watch all 50 State Legislatures to be sure Voting Rights are not taken away from every American. But if anybody is up to the task it’s Merrick Garland, the new Attorney General of the United States. Before it’s all over, Conservatives are going to wish he was a Supreme Court Justice, and not the nation’s highest ranking attorney.
(Vic MacDonald is editor of The Clinton Chronicle. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chronicle. MacDonald can be reached at 833-1900.)
“Standardize election practices in all 46 South Carolina’s counties”
McMaster Pens Letter to Members of the General Assembly, Urging Passage of Election Integrity Legislation
COLUMBIA – Governor Henry McMaster wrote a letter to every member of the South Carolina General Assembly urging them to protect the integrity of South Carolina’s elections by passing H.3444.
The legislation, sponsored by Speaker of the S.C. House of Representatives Jay Lucas, would give the State Election Commission the authority to standardize election practices in all 46 of South Carolina’s counties and add four members to the State Election Commission, appointed by the General Assembly.
“The right to vote is the single most important right afforded by the United States Constitution. As governor, I am committed to ensuring that all eligible South Carolinians can freely exercise that right with confidence in the fairness and integrity of the electoral process,” McMaster wrote.
“This critical legislation will enhance accountability at the State Election Commission and safeguard the voting process against the threat of fraud, which – if left unchecked – could do permanent damage to our republican form of government.
“Millions of Americans hold legitimate concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election. Though there were no reported voting irregularities in South Carolina, voter fraud remains a persistent and pervasive threat to the strength of our democracy.”
