As I was reading the recent book that chronicles a week-long conversation between the Dalai Lama and Desmund Tutu (The Book of Joy, 2016), I ran across a statement by Tutu that was almost a throwaway line, incidental to the subject at hand. He said that he has always been amazed by the low voter turnout in the United States. In South Africa, after emerging from Apartheid, newly voting citizens snaked around the polls for miles, eager to act on their hard-won right to vote. It was something attained through great struggle so they treasured it.
Of course, we had our own parallel experience in the not-to-distant past. When the Declaration of Independence was penned those allowed to vote were free men who owned property. In other words, those who had the power voted. It took decades of struggle, a civil war, the addition of amendments to the constitution, and legislation to insure the vote for people of color and women. It was not that long ago. And yet we forget.
As William Barber reminds us, following each of the three great reconstructions in terms of race and equal rights - the Civil War, The Civil Rights movement of the 60s, and this current time of expanding equal rights for all under the Constitution, there has been an equal and opposite attempt to deconstruct those gains. Usually that is done by withholding funding or changing laws on the state level (in spite of Federal law). It is a strategy that has been applied at each of the three great civil rights moments in our history.
One of those dramatic gains and resulting push backs has been the right to the vote. There was a time when our citizens also lined up around the block to vote. This also followed a long and arduous struggle to obtain that right. And those same citizens were often intimidated, brutalized and repressed when they exercised that right.
Today we have other attempts to repress voting. One of the recent silly ones is an informal campaign to #repealthe19th. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. Deconstruction efforts would take away the hard-won gains of women's suffrage because it would be advantageous for some if only men voted. Of course this won't happen. But even talk that it should be repealed gives one pause.
The clear and present danger is actually transpiring now.
On November 8th, Missouri voters will be asked to consider voting rights and who has access to the right to vote. Constitutional Amendment 6 seeks to require voter ID in addition to that already required by law - in effect, to require a government issued photo ID.
Those who support this amendment will appeal to presumed voter fraud. But that is a red herring. There is no evidence that it exists in significant degree or that it affects the outcome of elections.
The voter fraud argument provides an easy rationalization for a thinly veiled attempt at voter repression.
This proposal attempts the same deconstruction that has followed every gain for civil rights in our country. It disproportionately impacts those on the margins - l
ow-income people, people with disabilities, senior citizens, and people who move regularly (like young people).
Laws that impact only some in our communities effectively silence their voices.
Not everyone has a state ID or is able to get one. If a photo ID requirement was in place today, 220,000 eligible Missouri voters would not be able to vote.
For people of faith this is a moral issue not just a political one. All of those who fought for such freedoms did so precisely because it was a moral issue. It is common to appeal to rhetoric about "protecting our freedom" when it comes to making the case for a strong military. But you rarely hear those same words - protecting our freedom - when it comes to insuring the vote for all of our citizens.
As people of faith, we believe every person has worth and dignity, that we are each made in the image of our Creator. As far as we are able we make sure that everyone is included and recognized, all voices heard.
Desmund Tutu was right; it is shocking that we take such a prized freedom with such apathy. But what is more shocking is that there is now an attempt to move backwards and remove those freedoms. This year when Thanksgiving comes and we sit around our tables and give thanks for God's bounty and this good land, I want to believe that we will be giving thanks for all of us, not just some of us.
