To The Eagle:

We recently voted by mail on the school levy and did so with complete confidence in the integrity of Washington’s postal voting system. Folks using the ballot drop box didn’t have to worry about it being suddenly moved to a distant inconvenient location the day before the polls opened, as has happened in several “red” states. Washington voters don’t have to worry about craftily biased voter I.D. requirements as in Texas, where state issued student ID’s are not accepted at the polls, but a handgun license is. This is to disenfranchise students at the universities of Texas, many of whom are non-white potential Democrats, while more than 80% of Texans with gun licenses are white conservative Republicans.

I’ve never had my shaky, elderly signature challenged, whereas in Georgia, every signature on a mailed ballot must exactly match without the slightest variation of any prior signature, or be disqualified. Voter suppression by conservative White legislatures has a long history. When a Southern Black man tried to vote at the polls in the 1960's, he was shown a jar full of beans. Only after correctly guessing the number of beans in the jar could he could vote. Black citizens were humiliated and disenfranchised by such racist crap for a century in our pathetic excuse of a democracy. The 1965 Federal Voting Rights Act suppressed such institutional bigotry, but in 2013 an equally pathetic Supreme Court nullified that Act, reinvigorating the forces of voter suppression. Now, Republicans are desperately fighting against the renewal of expansive voting rights legislation. Why?

Referring specifically to voting by mail, the disgraced former president holding the GOP hostage to his electoral perversions said “Making it easier to vote will prompt more people to participate in elections and we’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” If only that were true, but it’s just another Big Lie. The GOP only pays lip service to voting rights. They’d rather have us all counting beans again.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island