A Series on the Loss of Rights: A Right to Vote

With the 2008 Presidential Elections less than a month away, I am getting more and more emails about our Right to Vote. Feeling compelled to clear up some misconceptions Americans have on our "Right to Vote", I find myself giving you yet another article in the series.

Our Right to Vote is a basic Constitutional right as set forth in the Fifteenth Amendment. What most people will miss is the second part. "The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Appropriate legislation has turned into a "who's allowed to vote and who's not allowed". Even tho the "United States nor any State" can take away that right. Even based on a persons "previous condition of servitude". Interesting how most people with any type of criminal background are excluded from voting.

But I digress.

Here is a basic understanding of the voting process.

The President is elected by Electoral College votes and not by Popular vote. Just like in 2004. Al Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the electoral vote.

So, why does it do any good to vote anyways? The more votes, the more electoral college points allotted to a state.

Here is another problem most people aren't aware of. We used to have the right to "write in" a candidate. Now with invention of electronic voting, we no longer have the option (at times) to "write in" a candidate. Not to mention all of the voting machine fraud.

So the question at hand remains. If neither candidate in the Presidential Election is worthy of holding office, what is the public to do? With the voting fraud, votes are shuffled from one candidate to another. And if the vote is for a third person, it may not even be counted at all. And not voting just reduces the numbers and therefore raising the percentages that a candidate has...

Then we have Obama busing people to get registered to vote, and vote in the same day. The ACLU is sending out messages both on their blog and in emails trying to get people to vote (their agenda is for the Constitution itself).

And this seasons elections are highly important. We are voting on a man who has acknowledged that he wouldn't mind being a dictator, and another who has close friends that are known terrorists. Who do we vote for to hold the highest office in the land? Who is "best qualified" to lead our Nation? If we write-in a candidate that we feel would do the job right, would our votes even make it.

Is voting a guaranteed right? Or just a motion to be gone through by the people to placate them into believing that everything is ok? Is the outcome of the Vote predetermined by some other group we are unaware of as citizens?

And with the reduction in eligible voters (people with a criminal record), do we really have a correct representation of the public in the voting system?

This years vote will be the most important vote that some will ever make. I pray that those voting do their homework and know who they are voting for.

Now is not the time for mistakes.