Dear America

To: theUSA@america.com
CC: smootherpebble.readers@international.org
From: smootherpebble@madeupemail.org.za

Dear America

I have just been listening to one of your political commentary shows, about voter registration problems in your elections. It sounds like the Republicans have been accused of purging thousands and thousands of people off voter rolls, largely from demographic groups that traditionally vote Democrat.

Now the way I understand it is that the two main issues are:
1) People who have irregularities in their voter registration details are being taken off the rolls (for example, if in one place I am registered as "Robert Smith" and somewhere else I am "Bob Smith").
2) People need to produce a photo ID to vote.

Perhaps there are more issues, if so I invite you to explain them to me.

Issue (1) seems pretty sensible to me - surely it should be the responsibility of the voter to ensure his/her information is correct? Would you have electoral officials contact all of these people to confirm their details? Or is there some sort of systematic problem with voter registration that means that conflicting information about a person is probable?

Issue (2) is a problem you really have created for yourselves America, I am afraid to say.
(For non-American's reading this letter, let me explain. Americans do not have identification books or identification numbers. What about social security numbers? No no, a social security number is just your number associated to the USA social security system - a government programme for old age pensions, disability grants and that sort of thing. It is not compulsory for US citizens to be part of the social security programme, so not all US citizens have social security numbers. And even if you are a part of the programme, and do have a social security number, it is not a photo ID and is relatively open to forgery and so forth.)

I am told that you have concerns about having national identity numbers and national photo ID books for all citizens. It could be the beginning of the slippery slope to big-brother style government control.
Okay then, thats fine, but you have to make some sort of sensible plan to work around your lack of ID numbers and national photo IDs.

I understand that at the moment you are required to produce your driver's license to vote. The show I watched complained that this denies many people the opportunity to vote. That seems ridiculous. Surely you make a plan for non-drivers? Or perhaps the show was just trying to push a point. They are claiming that this is strategic, because communities with many non-drivers (African American communities for example) are also traditionally Democrat strongholds. So Republicans are strategically denying people without drivers licenses the right to vote.

This sounds a bit conspiracy theory to me, but okay. If you cannot vote without a drivers licence, that would really need to be sorted out. That would be an incredibly silly situation. My gut says that it probably isn't true though, it was probably just the pro-Democrat peoople on the show being melodramatic. Which could well be the case with elections in two weeks.

In conclusion, let me encourage you with the workd of Trevor Manuel, South Africa's finance minister" "Democracy is a social compact between the government and the citizens." It only works if we all do our part. And your part is to make sure that you are properly registered to vote.

If you are not sure, try going to Can I Vote? to see if you are properly registered (you can also find handy information like election day polling booth hours). Or contact some sort of local government official in your area to find out. I'm not sure quite how things work in your country, but surely there must be some sort of electoral commision people you can find out from.

If you are not registered, oh dear, too late. Sorry, you forfeited your right to participate in the great Obama/Palin showdown. But its okay, in four years you will have another chance.

It is true that you are a pretty huge nation and that voting on that sort of scale must be epically difficult to coreograph. But come on guys, you (literally) invented democracy.

Thank you for the Chips Ahoy.

Warm regards,
A Smoother Pebble