BEN BAKER: Republicans, Democrats want to disenfranchise registered voters

Tell someone he cannot vote in a public election, despite being registered to vote and in the district where the election is held.

If you say that, you’ll be met with sound and fury. If you insist on it and actually prevent the person from voting, normally you’d be slapped with a lawsuit, drowned in a media blitz and be held up to national ridicule and scorn. That is the way it should be.

Except it is not.

Later this month when early voting begins, registered voters across the state will be told “No. You cannot vote.” At the polls. They will be turned away. If they attempt to press their case, law enforcement will step in and, if needed, forcibly remove the person from the polling location.

This is the law. This is currently legal. Hundreds of thousands of voters in Georgia will not get to vote in an election. They will be turned away.

This is so wrong. This should be illegal.

It is not.

The powers that be and the Republican and Democratic parties do not want you to vote. They actively support efforts to prevent you from voting. They support the laws that stop you from voting.

Never mind you are registered. You can’t vote.

Never mind you are paying for the election. You can’t vote.

Never mind you can vote in other elections. You still can’t vote in some elections, even though the race for office is in your district, where you live and where you are registered.

Never mind you meet all the requirements of the law to be allowed to vote.

You can’t vote. The law says so.

This is just wrong.

Our elected officials have no interest in changing this, as noted above. They do not want you to vote.

Some of you are shaking your heads in disbelief. You cannot believe this.

As (Turner County) Election Superintendent Jan Winter writes, “The voter must select a party: Democrat, Republican or Non-Partisan. The selection is only for this election.“

As a taxpayer, you must pay for the elections. As a voter, you should be allowed to vote in all the elections. Yet, you cannot.

This “primary” option becomes more evil at the local level, where the primary election is tantamount to the general election. If you want to vote “R” in one race and “D” in another race in the primary, the law says you cannot. Never mind you have to pay for both elections. Never mind you meet all the requirements to vote and you are registered.

Evil. 100 percent evil. Preventing people from voting and struggling to be able to vote cost the lives of too many American citizens. Yet preventing people from voting remains encoded in the law, and our elected officials support this.

If the various parties want to hold and pay all the bills associated with a primary election, let them. They may close these primaries and only allow registered party members to vote. Fair enough.

To require everyone to pay for the election, but not allowing everyone to vote, no, that is so unfair. Making it worse, too many people who are not elected and have no intention of running for office also support this unfair and evil system.

It is time to change. If an election is planned, let everyone in that district who is registered to vote be allowed to vote. Damn the partisan primaries, unless the party foots the entire bill for the election.

This can be changed. The primaries can be opened to all voters. It just takes someone with enough guts to stand up against the Republicans and the Democrats to push for this.

The R&D crowd is certainly not going to change a system that rigs elections in their favor, which is another reason to vote against them and against incumbents.

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