POLLING: Please answer questions

Message to the Kootenai County Commissioners:

I have two questions and a brief statement.

Have the commissioners done due diligence in time/motion analysis of how the closing of a significant number of polling sites will affect access to the ballot, especially in high voter turnout elections? Is this data available?

Have the commissioners considered that voters are a class, and as such, have recourse to class action if their access to the ballot is abridged?

The conscience of every democracy is the voice of its people. Nowhere is this voice heard more profoundly than through free, open and accessible elections. The voting booth is our microphone. We, the people, are the oversight committee.

Any change in policy or law that has the effect of quelling the voice of the people at the ballot box is a move away from government of, by and for the people. Movement away from democracy is movement toward something else.

In the end it does not matter whether the rationale for such a move is driven by economic considerations, political considerations or whether it simply reflects insufficient analysis of the ramifications of voter suppression. Any such change is a move away from having the voice of the people heard in a meaningful way.

This country was founded on the principle of consent of the governed. That consent is either given or withheld at the ballot box. Kootenai County has the wherewithal to preserve the voice of its people. Its commissioners should not take steps in the opposite direction.

STEPHEN D. BRUNO

Hayden