Voting Thougts

As we enter our first ever lame duck ala orange period, it will be interesting what the approach is.

For the next seven weeks the republicans still control both houses of congress but traditionally, when we were more civil, the outgoing congress did not so things they know the incoming congress would oppose.

However we are not in an era of actual animosity where its more likely that common courtesy is a forgotten thing.

Maybe civility will actually return.

One of the things the last few elections showed us is that races can be lost before any voting takes place.

Looking at the 2016 election and the mid-terms certain races were decided by less votes than the votes suppressed by restrictive measures.

In North Dakota, they tried to suppress native American votes by requiring a street address, something many of them don't have, although in the election it probably didn't impact the outcome.

In many states, including Georgia and Florida, voter suppression efforts may have actually changed the election outcome.  It's hard to actually count those who don't vote because of these efforts, but when the elections are so close, you know every vote mattered.

It seems like the sort of thing we should be able to agree on, giving every citizen the ability to exercise the franchise, but for some that is a path to defeat and they will do what they can to avoid it.

We have two years to make sure the next election is more democratic, its important.