An absence of honor

Let’s imagine that a BIG GAME is to be played this November. The BIG GAME is football and will be played in the state capitol at the state university’s football stadium. The two teams playing against each other consist of a state university (LSU for example) versus a private university (Tulane University for example). The two teams have a long and storied rivalry and fans on both sides are excited to see this year’s BIG GAME. Now, let’s imagine that political leaders want the state university team to win so badly that they wrote a new law specifically configured to benefit the state university.

Under the new law, the Tulane University football team must be in town 48 hours before the BIG GAME is to be played. Each Tulane team player must submit to a medical examination 24 hours before the game, at their own expense. Finally, each Tulane team player must prove their American citizenship by presenting their birth certificate to state officials before they are allowed to take the field. As prescribed in the new law, failure of any one Tulane team player to comply with or satisfy any one of the new rules will result in an automatic disqualification of the whole Tulane University football team and, a forfeiting of the BIG GAME.

Now, let us imagine that due to the new law the BIG GAME is never actually played, Therefore LSU wins by forfeiture and, the LSU football team, their families and their fans are proud of their victory and exuberant in their celebrations.

If the above scenario strikes you as grossly unfair, outrageously Un-American or too shameful to even imagine - then you have more dignity, moral fortitude and respect for the American ideal of fair play than the nearly one dozen GOP governors and hundreds of Republican state legislators who have passed game fixing voter ID laws specifically for partisan advantage. Let there be no confusion, the GOP is trying to “fix” the 2012 presidential election. According to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, since 2010 Republican officeholders have introduced 180 bills to restrict voting rights.

Somehow, GOP leaders have convinced themselves that disenfranchising millions of American voters is an acceptable political exercise. As a pretext for their actions, they claim to be protecting the integrity of American elections. And, voter ID laws are not the only game fixing tactics that Republican leaders have pulled out of their voter assault arsenal. In Maine the GOP controlled legislature eliminated election day voter registration. In Florida GOP legislators passed a law that hindered voter registration drives. In both instances the victories were short lived. Voters in Maine overturned the legislature’s banning of election day voter registration and in Florida a federal judge has struck down the parts of the law that were intended to impede registration of new voters.

Football is an all American sport. We expect each game to be played on an even playing field that does not provide an advantage or disadvantage for either team. But, in politics of late the ideal of American fairness and evenhandedness has been muddied. It is not “alright,” no matter what spurious argument is offered by Republican partisans, to tip the scales of American elections to the advantage of one political party. Today’s leaders of the Party of Lincoln have abandoned a quintessential American principle - the principle of victory with honor. Disenfranchising American voters for partisan gain is Un-American. Any electoral win under such convention represents a  hollow victory. A man or woman who  assumes office under a "game fixing" arrangement is contemptuous of democracy and, has no honor.
by Brent Scott, Executive Director of Vote by Mail America