Dear GOP,
You, who are so concerned about "voter fraud" that you've enacted restrictive voting laws harkening back to Jim Crow... You have the balls, the unmitigated gall, the cajones, the chutzpah to "require" your primary voters to sign a pledge that they will vote Republican in the general election? What. The. Fuck.
This strikes at the very heart of free elections. Something our democracy is based on. What gives you the legal right to force a citizen to vote for any candidate? If this were happening in the elections in Iraq, Egypt, or any other middle east nation, you would be crying foul, and rightfully so.
Whether there is any legal way to actually enforce this forced pledge, other than through intimidation (uhh, illegal) is unclear to me. But to deny a citizen the right to vote in a primary unless they commit to a particular party for the general election has got to be illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and im-, il-, and un- everything else.
I understand that the parties set the rules at the state level for primaries, and I have no problem with that in theory, assuming that the rules set forth are freaking constitutional.
US Department of Justice - I call on you to investigate this practice and put a stop to it!
So, GOP, how do I spell GOP?
H.Y.P.O.C.R.I.S.Y.
You have created voter ID laws in many states, under the guise of "stopping voter fraud", when indeed, there are so few cases of voter fraud in the US that your obvious goal of disenfranchising any voter likely to vote against your party becomes glaringly obvious. Whether this is motivated by greed, desire for power, simple and outright fear that your base is itself becoming disenfranchised from your ever-increasingly extremist message, or all three does not matter. What does matter, is that you are forcing honest, law-abiding US citizens out of their constitutional right to vote. People who traditionally vote Democratic. The elderly, students (who apparently only vote liberal), minorities and the poor - all who may, due to socioeceonomic and other factors, may have a more difficult time getting an approved voter ID.
And yet, in the Iowa caucuses, you are not requiring voters to show ID. Huh. I wonder why that is? Could it be that you are confident that all GOP voters in the caucuses will vote GOP, so then, no need to force their hand? Apparently, you aren't so confident in Virginia.
If only you would step away from your desperate grab for more power, more money, more, More, MOAR!!! You might see that you were elected to represent ALL the people in your district - not just the ones who voted for you or are likely to vote for you again. You would see that people are hurting, and forcing them to take time off of a job in order to obtain "proper" voting ID might cause them to lose said job. But of course, those people are just deadbeats anyway, so what do we care if they lose their job?
Constitution 101, just in case you've forgotten some of these...
Article XV
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Article XIX
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Amendment XXIV
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Amendment XXVI
The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.
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