By Larry Craig

No doubt you have heard about the hundreds of bills passed in the different states by evil people, coincidentally all of the same political party, who trying to suppress voting rights and voter turnout.

The Chicago Sun-Times gave a full page to a story about the “battle to pass federal voting rights legislation.” The federal laws are needed to supersede all the malicious laws passed by the states.

The message of the article is urgent because of “a wave of voter suppression laws” passing in our country; because “voting rights are under attack”; and because there is a “continuing fight for civil rights.”

At this point, I was really anxious to read examples of these egregious acts that are depriving or suppressing people of their right to vote.

Here is a list of the ways that politicians of that other party are suppressing voting and voter rights, according to the article:

1) Banning drop boxes.

Who knew that using drop boxes was a right? How did we get by for 240 years before this? You do realize that putting a ballot in a drop box is not actually voting. You haven’t voted until somebody puts that ballot into the tabulation machine. When you vote in person, you put it in yourself. When you use a drop box, you don’t know when or if that ballot is ever counted. You have no idea if the person collecting the ballots opens each one first and discards the ones they don’t like. And we don’t know if that person adds a bunch of her own.

2) Banning mail-in voting.

Nobody is banning that. There are always people who physically cannot leave their homes to go somewhere to vote, and they will always be able to vote absentee.

One of the principal tenets of elections in a free society is that people are able to vote in private, free from any outside influences. When people vote in person, they go to a secluded place and make their choices, away from the eyes and voices of other people.

We don’t have that with mail-in ballots. We don’t know if people are pressured to fill out a ballot in a certain way. We don’t even know who is filling out the ballot. Plus, when officials have stacks of opened ballots that they then need to feed into a tabulation machine en masse, we have no safeguards ensuring ballots won’t be discarded, changed, or even added fraudulently. We don’t know. When people vote in person, you put your own ballot into the box. That is the safest and most secure way to vote.

3) Slashing early voting hours.

Early voting is a relatively new concept. How is that a right? And how many days and what hours are you entitled to? And how are fewer hours suppressing your right to vote? Nobody thought voter rights were suppressed when everyone had to vote in person on one day for almost our country’s entire history. It was difficult for some people, yes. But people planned their lives around that one day, Election Day.

4) Restricting mail-in eligibility.

There are two fundamentals of a safe and secure election in a free society: a) ensuring we know who is voting and that they are eligible, and b) ensuring that the ballot is filled out without any coercion or undue influences. Both of these can only be done in person.

People leave their homes for countless reasons: work, shopping, social visits. Voting should be another one of those reasons. Voting by mail is a luxury, not a necessity, for almost everybody. Asking people to vote once or twice a year in person so we can verify their identity and ensure they vote in private is not a hardship. Make the effort.

Yes, voting is a significant responsibility in a free society. The only way we can truly protect the right to vote is to put up the strongest and highest bulwarks against any possibilities of fraud.

One fraudulent vote can erase your vote. If you’re worried about voting rights, then you need to protect your vote against any possible false votes. As much as possible, you need to put your vote into the voting box yourself. That’s the only way you know you voted and that nobody did anything to your ballot. And the only way you know your vote mattered is if the election officials tried very hard to eliminate any possibility of mischief.