Letter: Voting is a right, not a privilege

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To the Editor:

Recently, GOP leader Kurt Zellers referred to voting as a “privilege.”

According to the Constitution/Bill of Rights, voting is a guaranteed right, a right fought for and sacrificed for.

During World War II, the “Greatest Generation” shed blood and tears on beaches in the Pacific, on the African front, on the European front and the home front for that right. They bought war bonds, rationed and recycled for the war effort. They lost husbands, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters and friends. We have continued to have the right to vote due to people willing to sacrifice for it at home and in the military.

Now, voter ID laws put that right in jeopardy for many of the “Greatest Generation.” Many no longer drive, have no “valid” ID and to get one takes a birth certificate that may not be available (home births, courthouse fires).

The long waits in line for people no longer able to get around, let alone to stand in line, and the costs for people with fixed incomes, not only for the ID itself, but for the certified birth certificate, and travel costs to get both discourages voting. We should be encouraging more people to vote, not making it harder. ID laws could take away the right to vote from those that sacrificed the most for our rights. Let’s treat the “Greatest Generation” with the respect and thanks they deserve. Let’s make sure they always have the right to vote. It’s what they did for us and would do again.

It should be noted that both former Gov. Arnie Carlson(R) and former Senator Walter Mondale(D) oppose the voter ID Amendment.

Sanda Oslin, Sturgeon Lake

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion