Read On: In peril — the process of voting

No one understands better than I do that at some point it starts to sound like sour grapes — that even though our candidate lost the election, we need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and move forward.

But I’m not there yet. The Christmas spirit will have to get in line and wait its turn.

I promise not to whimper again about my fear that the republic is poised to come undone with the prospect of President Trump. I’m sure it has survived bigger threats, though outside of the Civil War, none spring immediately to mind.

What I want to discuss today is voter suppression. Because when the talk gets around to how the election was “rigged” and all of that, the most severe peril to our democracy comes at the beginning of the process rather than the end.

It’s been reported that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of eligible voters were denied the ability to exercise this most cherished and essential of their rights as American citizens. Those who have been tasked with overseeing the voting rolls in many states seem obsessed with finding a series of seemingly petty and capricious reasons to prevent people from casting ballots.

What is, of course, most troubling about this is the fact that an overwhelming majority of those bounced from the voting rolls, or who have their ballots invalidated, just happen to be Democrats. What are the odds, you know?

The reason for this is hardly random or mysterious. The Republican Party benefits when fewer people vote, particularly minority voters. And so it’s a calculated and far-reaching strategy that has played a key role in propelling the GOP to power in the Oval Office and both houses of Congress. It is simply a fact.

A Facebook friend of mine who cast a general-election vote in Texas posted this week that he’d just found out his mail-in ballot had been invalidated by a Dallas ballot judge. Why? Seems the judge thought his ballot was fraudulent because he thought the middle initial “I” looked like an “R” on one of his signatures. So his vote didn’t count.

What would stop this judge from doing the same thing with 5,000 ballots? Or 10,000? Why not 100,000?

This should infuriate everyone on all sides of the political spectrum who prize honesty and integrity in our elections. Except that it doesn’t. It only angers Democrats. The others dismiss it with either “Tough luck, move on” or “Quit whining, loser.”

Here is the problem with that partisan line of thinking: The system is broken. It just is. And even if we conclude that Mr. Trump won fair and square, the man himself tweeted a few weeks back that he lost the popular vote because millions voted illegally.

In other words, the president-elect of the United States of America agrees with me that wholesale political reform is necessary to ensure an authentic result.

So let’s take our soon-to-be chief executive at his word — a dicey proposition, I know. We’re coming off of an election in which some 128 million people voted and 93 million eligible voters didn’t, or couldn’t or wouldn’t. Converting that massive group of nonvoters into voters should be seen as critically important for anyone who values the will of the people — all of the people.

This, of course, is a particular challenge given that one of the two major political parties spends much more time and energy devising ways to keep people from having a voice. And that’s why it’s incumbent on those on the left (or at least in the middle) to step up and put their money where their country is.

I’m talking to you, Oprah Winfrey. And you, Mark Cuban. And you, George Soros. And you, Michael Bloomberg. And you, Warren Buffett. And you, Mark Zuckerberg. And you, Sheryl Sandberg. And you, David Geffen. And you, free-thinking person of means.

Take one of your billions (or two if you can afford it) and put it toward registering new voters, converting illegal voters to legal ones and to promoting the idea that the future of the nation literally depends on fixing a structure clearly in dire need of renovation. And don’t wait for 2018 or 2020. Get started on it right now.

There will naturally be those who rise up in opposition. But their craven motives will be clear. I contend that there is no greater act of patriotism and loyalty to America than ensuring the future sanctity of our system of government.

--

RAY RICHMOND has covered Hollywood and the entertainment business since 1984. He can be reached via email at ray@rayrichco.com and Twitter at @MeGoodWriter.