Quote:
Originally Posted by justplugit
I doubt your old enough to be my Grandfather,  but if my memory serves me right I registered to vote in 1960 when I was 21. In order to vote you had to take your birth certificate to the County Board of Elections to prove your age (21 at that time) and prove you were a US citizen. You were then issued a voting card. Polls were open from 7 am to 9 pm and people knowing it was their Right and responsibility made it their Patriotic Duty to get there.
In 74 the voting age was dropped to 18 so that our Armed Services, who were willing to give up their lives for their country had the right to vote also. |
Your correct. It used to be "harder" to vote than it is now, or will be by any "Con" shortening of voting hours. And it was viewed as a right, responsibility, and patriotic duty, rather than a catered-to entitlement made to order for your convenience. All the good, important things in our lives require effort, most of them far more effort than it takes to vote, or took to vote when it was even more "difficult." Being one of our most important rights and duties, it actually should require enough effort to make abuse of the right more difficult. The more lax the requirements to vote, or the more time than necessary to vote, the more ease in falsifying the process. That we accept the need of ID, time restrictions, difficulty in getting to and performing work and pleasure, and so forth, yet consider it too burdensome for voting is amazing. I suppose if its too burdensome to pay on your own for contraceptives . . . yeah . . . I can see the "logic" of having everything else, including voting, made easier. Besides, it doesn't seem to make an impact on the direction the country is heading anyway. What the Hell, let's make it completely open. Voting should be allowed every day up until the election, by computer if necessary. No identification or citizenship should be required.