Country Living Politics

On August 24, Virginia posted to the Chatlist "And as for Raymond Gastwaite, broad and unimpeded access to the ballot box is what democracy demands and what my father fought to uphold in WWII as well as my uncle did later in Korea."

Huh?

Perhaps Virginia misread my post referring to the Chatham County Board of Elections meeting in August. In it I talked about hecklers being rude to the Elections Board members and to the rest of the meeting participants. I also mentioned that the Board of Elections was not able to rent space for election sites due to intimidating behavior by one of the political parties in the past. Intimidating behavior seems like one method of impeding access to the ballot box. 

So, two items. 

First item: here is the rule for electioneering at voting places (the complete list of NC voting law is at http://dl.ncsbe.gov/sboe/ElectionLawIndex.pdf). Nobody can hinder access, harass others, distribute campaign literature, place political advertising, solicit votes, or otherwise engage in election-related activity in the voting place or in a buffer zone of 50 feet from the front door of the place of voting.

Let us all pay close attention to make sure this law is enforced. Let us also hope that electioneering is conducted with respect to all political viewpoints.

Second item: I know a bit about what our soldiers do for the country. I took the soldiers oath (http://www.history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html), like millions of others since the beginning of our Republic, and that oath says we will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Oaths do not expire. If you really want to know what soldiers fight for, read the Constitution.