Voting: Your rights - and mine

Do we have the right to vote or need a right to vote? In fact, does it even matter?

Recent letters to the editor discuss handing out political literature inside the polling station, the place where we vote. Some commenters found it a serious infringement on our voting process. Others considered it a nearly insignificant activity. Our Kootenai County elected officials seemed to procrastinate enforcing the law but did finally recognize a legal violation and acted on it.

If you are looking for the right to vote, you won’t find it in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget — they intentionally left it out. The state constitutions explicitly recognized voting rights.

Voting rights in the United States have been a moral and political issue throughout United States history. The most important right of American citizens is the right to vote.

The U.S. Constitution grants to the states the power to set voting requirements. Generally, states limited the right to vote to property-owning white males. The 1828 presidential election was the first time non-property owning white males voted. The 15th Amendment eliminated racial barriers to voting even though many states continued practicing voter discrimination.

In the 20th century, the courts began to interpret this amendment and struck down certain grandfather clauses and dismantling the white primary system.

The 19th Amendment provided women with the right to vote. The 24th Amendment prohibited the use of poll taxes in federal elections. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote.

While voting is a right and a privilege of citizenship, it is also a duty and a responsibility. By voting, citizens have a voice in their government to help ensure the our democratic representative system of government is maintained.

To best protect the right to vote, each state has some restrictions on political activities, specifically electioneering, near polling places when voting is taking place. These restrictions usually include limiting the display of signs, handing out campaign literature or soliciting votes within a pre-determined distance (typically 50 to 200 feet) of a polling place. Some states also address what apparel voters can wear within polling places.

• 15 states prohibit campaign apparel/buttons/stickers/placards

• 37 states prohibit campaign materials/signs/banners/literature

• 28 states prohibit influencing voters/soliciting votes/political persuasion

• 17 states prohibit circulating petitions/soliciting signatures

• 9 states prohibit projecting sounds referring to candidates/issues

• 6 states prohibit polls/exit polls

• 9 states prohibit loitering

• 3 states prohibit peddling/advertising

• 10 states prohibit voter intimidation/interfering with voters

• 10 states prohibit obstructing entrance/hindering voters

Idaho has the following restrictions:

Idaho I.C. § 18-2318

100 ft. of a building where an election is being held

• Campaign Materials/Signs/Banners/Literature

• Circulating Petitions/Soliciting Signatures

• Obstructing Entrance/Hindering Voter

• Other: "Engage in any practice which interferes with the freedom of voters to exercise their franchise or disrupts the administration of the polling place."

Electioneering laws are enacted to protect against election interference. When these laws are broken, it can have a significant impact on a society by damaging the political process.

Some may say that handing out literature equates to no harm, no foul. Often when I vote people are standing near the polling place with signs and yelling vote for this person or that issue. Although generally it is legal, personally I find it offensive, perhaps intimidating to some.

We have the secret ballot, which means the decision is mine and not anyone else’s business. Who or what another person supports is not my concern inside the polling station.

If your opinion is so important to you, then go talk to candidates or the patrons of a local bar. If you need a speaking platform it can not and should not be inside my precinct.

Why would anyone decide to advocate for any person or cause there? If a person is too timid, too afraid to speak out in public places, why would you choose any precinct?

It’s easy to speak up to a captive audience if you think you can. It is not your civil right nor your civil liberty in the polling place. It is my right to vote without any interference or intimidation or the tedium of someone’s opinion trivial or not.

Citizenship is being vested with the rights, privileges and duties of a citizen, but it can also be defined as the character of an individual viewed as a member of society. While U.S. citizenship provides many rights, it also involves many responsibilities. Civic duties ensure that democratic values written into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are upheld. Responsibilities include both those that are voluntary as well as those required by law.

More than 440 bills with provisions that restrict voting access were introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions. Nineteen states passed voter restriction laws in 2021. There are bills pending in the Idaho legislature to change voting requirements making it more difficult for people to vote.

When I read previously that mailboxes were being removed to limit the mailing in of a ballot, I thought how low can we go? This seemed like junior high tactics.

Interfering in a polling place may seem to some as not important, but it is. As lawyers like to say, it’s a slippery slope. Now it is more like an avalanche, but it must be stopped.

Voting is our right as citizens, a sacred right. Voting allows us all to matter, to protect our constitution and be the strongest counter we have to the money interests attempting to purchase a favorable result for themselves, the few.

“We the people” must recognize the power we hold at the ballot box and not let anyone, no matter how trivial it may seem, to diminish our power. If a person wants to stand up for something that matters, the right to vote is it.

This should not be a political issue but a sacred issue no one and no political candidate or party can reduce for any of us. The right to vote without interference does matter no individual or state legislature should be allowed to diminish the right to vote for any citizen.

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Phil Ward is a Coeur d’Alene resident.