by Pa Rock
Regular Voter
One of the many encouraging items on Twitter this week was a tweet which stated that singers Willie Nelson and Melissa Etheridge were both sending their tour buses to Dodge City, Kansas, to help get voters to the new polling place - the only one for the city's 13,000 voters - which was relocated to a facility outside of town. The new voting place has no sidewalk access, nor is there any public transportation to the site.
The rest of Ford County has an additional 1,300 voters who are served by three additional polling stations.
Dodge City is about 60% Hispanic, and some felt that Ford County Clerk Debbie Cox moved the polling place to negatively impact those particular voters. In fact, the whole thing went to court this week, but the ruling favored the clerk saying that opening another polling station at this late date would only serve to add confusion to the situation.
The ACLU had sent Cox a letter asking that her website include a link to the ACLU's voter helpline, something which might help to quell voting confusion - particularly among the Hispanic voters. In ignoring that request, Clerk Cox scribbled "LOL" on it and forwarded the letter on to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. She obviously had a greater interest in serving the political needs of Kobach than she did in serving her constituents in Dodge City.
This morning I scanned the internet news sources to see if the tour buses were on duty and ferrying people to the polls. After digging around for quite awhile and finding no stories about the effort, I came to the sad conclusion that the tweet about Willie Nelson and Melissa Etheridge had most likely been false - perhaps a dirty trick to keep others from rushing out to Dodge City to help in the voting effort.
But the United States is a country of good people, and I am confident that many true Americans are in Dodge City this morning providing rides to the polls. The people there will struggle to exercise their voting franchise, and, if for no other reason than to honor their valiant efforts to cast ballots, the rest of us also need to get to the polls.
Democracy is best served when everybody has the opportunity to participate.
Vote, dammit, vote!
Regular Voter
One of the many encouraging items on Twitter this week was a tweet which stated that singers Willie Nelson and Melissa Etheridge were both sending their tour buses to Dodge City, Kansas, to help get voters to the new polling place - the only one for the city's 13,000 voters - which was relocated to a facility outside of town. The new voting place has no sidewalk access, nor is there any public transportation to the site.
The rest of Ford County has an additional 1,300 voters who are served by three additional polling stations.
Dodge City is about 60% Hispanic, and some felt that Ford County Clerk Debbie Cox moved the polling place to negatively impact those particular voters. In fact, the whole thing went to court this week, but the ruling favored the clerk saying that opening another polling station at this late date would only serve to add confusion to the situation.
The ACLU had sent Cox a letter asking that her website include a link to the ACLU's voter helpline, something which might help to quell voting confusion - particularly among the Hispanic voters. In ignoring that request, Clerk Cox scribbled "LOL" on it and forwarded the letter on to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. She obviously had a greater interest in serving the political needs of Kobach than she did in serving her constituents in Dodge City.
This morning I scanned the internet news sources to see if the tour buses were on duty and ferrying people to the polls. After digging around for quite awhile and finding no stories about the effort, I came to the sad conclusion that the tweet about Willie Nelson and Melissa Etheridge had most likely been false - perhaps a dirty trick to keep others from rushing out to Dodge City to help in the voting effort.
But the United States is a country of good people, and I am confident that many true Americans are in Dodge City this morning providing rides to the polls. The people there will struggle to exercise their voting franchise, and, if for no other reason than to honor their valiant efforts to cast ballots, the rest of us also need to get to the polls.
Democracy is best served when everybody has the opportunity to participate.
Vote, dammit, vote!
No comments:
Post a Comment