I figured I’d haul out the Fourth of July blimp postcard.
Even if you are not marking today with “[…] Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations” as John Adams suggested in a letter written July 3, 1776, what celebrates independence more than the right to vote?
And so here’s a timely tweet from Charlie Pierce reminding us why voting matters.
July 14th is the deadline for states to comply with Trump and the GOP’s bogus voting “fraud” commission request for extensive voter registration data from all fifty states. Over half Forty one have refused to comply fearing that the real mission of Donald Trump’s Election Integrity Commission — run by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach — is to suppress voting — and slate.com says, to eventually gut and repeal the National Voter Registration Act.
On Monday Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos (D) left no doubt about our state’s position: “I want to make one thing perfectly clear: Vermont will NOT be complying with the Commission’s request for Vermont voters’ private and sensitive information,”* Condos said Monday in a written statement. “Protecting the privacy and security of Vermont voters’ most sensitive information is something I take very seriously, and I will not compromise the privacy of Vermont citizens to support the Trump Administration’s witch hunt for widespread voter fraud, which has been disproven many times over by non-partisan experts.”[added emphasis]
Happy Independence Day Vermont
*The fine print: Condos: “I will not release any more information about Vermont voters than is available to any citizen requesting our voter file.”
Whatever any member of the public is entitled to from Secretary of State records will be available — so that would mean no social security numbers, DOBs, or other ‘private’ info. Our names, addresses, and voting histories (which are public info) will be in Pence-Kobach’s hands within the deadline period.
This most recent attempt by the Trump administration to compromise state voter records reminds me that someone (can’t recall whom) made the prescient statement that under this administration, state SOS’s will have to assume the roll of frontline fighters for our rights.
Happy Fourth of July to Jim Condos and all the other SOS’s in this resistance effort.