As ever, Peter Jensen excels at putting the silly into supercilious. Nothing could help restore the shattered confidence a high majority of Americans have in most of our institutions (like the press) than opening the most precious privilege of responsible citizenship… the right to vote… to any clownfish who can stagger into a polling place on Election Day (“Maryland doesn’t have a voter integrity problem,” Nov. 3). What could go wrong?
There are Marylanders, some not white supremacists or gun-fondling members of weekend militias, who believe that being a citizen with voting privileges requires that person to meet some fundamental responsibilities.
These include: being a legitimate American citizen recognized as such by the federal government, actually residing in Maryland, and being able to prove to an election official that you are who you say you are. Getting a government-issued photo ID is not difficult. It is not a literacy test or a poll tax. If you want to stay off the grid. Fine. But you don’t get the right to vote.
We should not degrade the privilege of citizenship. Maryland is already a one-party dictatorship. There is a large group of residents, generally responsible, tax-paying, productive, patriotic citizens, who have essentially been denied suffrage in Maryland for decades. They’re called Republicans.
— Jon Ketzner, Cumberland
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