You may recall how terrorists attacked polling places in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years when the people of those nations were finally able to vote for leaders of their choosing — after decades of rigged or nonexistent elections.
Yet despite the terrorist threat, millions of Afghans and Iraqis courageously went to the polls to cast their ballots and have a say in their government.
Their determination to exercise the right to vote in the face of real danger should cause us Americans to appreciate how easy it is to vote in our free country.
Rarely do we face any “danger” greater than, perhaps, some bad weather when we show up at polling places to make our choices among the candidates seeking public office. We also have options such as early voting if we cannot vote on Election Day itself.
So it is unfortunate that there has been a good deal of grumbling about a new requirement in Tennessee that voters present valid photo identification to cast ballots. In some cases, it can take a few hours to get a driver’s license at one of the scores of driver service centers around the state, critics of the new law say. And some other — minor — bureaucratic hassles have surfaced as Tennesseans who do not already have the required ID seek to obtain it.