Of the People, By the People, For the People

Last week’s Letter to the Editor “Wyoming is in a crisis” included several issues, one being the allegation that Trump would have been re-elected “if Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin had followed the national constitution instead of their ‘revised state constitutions’ concerning national elections,” and then conflates the popular vote with electoral votes.  Unfortunately, that is incorrect.  States alone determine how electors are chosen (Art 2, Sec 1, US Constitution) and whether they must follow the popular vote results for that state (“Faithless Electors,” US Supreme Court).  Donald Trump’s re-election campaign lost both the popular and electoral vote.  States did not change their rules for electoral votes, they changed their rules for popular votes (Art 1, Sec 4, US Constitution) to make voting easier, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Those states made it easier to vote by absentee ballot, extended polling place hours, utilized drop boxes, and made other accommodations so that more people could vote during a public health crisis.

What concerns me most about the allegations contained in the aforementioned letter to the editor, is that if you unpack that argument - aside from being factually incorrect - it creates some troubling questions.  First, the writer ignores the down-ballot Republican wins on these same ballots in the same states.  She is not contesting the elections of the three Republican Representatives from Arizona, the eight Republican Representatives from Georgia, the Republican Representative from Nevada, the nine Republican Representatives from Pennsylvania, or the five Republican Representatives from Wisconsin.  Obviously, the voting rules instituted by the state legislatures and Secretaries of State from these states did not preclude Republicans from winning those seats, using the same ballots and voting methods.  Additionally, in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Republicans had (and have) control of both their state house and state senate.  Republicans created and enacted the new voting rules.

Secondly, and more importantly, the writer implies that making it easier for Americans to participate in voting is a problem, which I find confusing.  It is my understanding that America represents itself as the leader of the free world, and the cornerstone of full democracy to all her citizens.  Many people fought and died for the right to vote, throughout our country’s history.  White women were beaten, kidnapped, raped, and jailed because they dared to ask for the right to vote.  African Americans were not only subjected to similar attempts at intimidation, but also lynched, and denied the right to vote through cultural purity tests, poll taxes, and other “Jim Crow” type laws.  African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans (who have more claim to this land and country than any of us immigrants) were all denied unobstructed voting rights until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  In the 2020 election, after numerous recounts and audits in these states, no significant numbers of illegal or ineligible votes were found, despite all the rhetoric alleging otherwise.  This means all of these “extra votes” were legal votes cast by legal voters.  America (and Wyoming) should encourage full participation from as many citizens as possible, to truly be a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”  Making legal voting easier does not diminish our democracy - it enriches it.

Kimberly Bartlett