An insightful article by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman in The Huffington Post today discusses the continuation of the controversy regarding voting and vote caging in Ohio. The issue in Ohio, as they point out, will not be resolved until after the election, which leaves us in a terrifying situation in which many people will not be able to vote even though they thought that they were registered and ready to go. Check out this bit of the article that hit me the hardest:
“More than 300,000 Ohio voters were disenfranchised in the run-up to 2004, and at least 170,000 have since been eliminated in Franklin County alone. Many citizens who believe they are registered may not be.”
Many citizens who believe they are registered may not be?!?!? I’m sorry, but I don’t think that it’s too much to ask that our government do its best to facilitate voting, the cornerstone of democracy, not prevent it for so many voters.
The Help America Vote Act does its share in this post-2000 debacle country to make voting accessible, but we still have a long way to go before I’d say that we are a legitmate democracy again. Even so, check out this article by Bradley A. Blakeman on Politico.com that discusses get out the (early) vote activities in swing states like Ohio. It’s on!
Putting the OH! back in Ohio 