It is a sad sign of our times that government sometimes feels it has to enact laws to try to persuade the American people to exercise their right to vote. A citizen may register to vote while signing up for welfare benefits. And absentee ballots are provided not only to those who truly cannot get to the voting booth, but also to those who simply find going to the polls inconvenient.
Voting is a precious liberty! It should not require a gold-plated invitation!
The people of Iraq understand that, even if too many Americans seem to have forgotten it. After years under dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraqis now may vote in free elections, as they did Sunday for members of their Parliament.
But they did so at great personal risk. More than three dozen Iraqis were murdered by al-Qaida terrorists in Sunday’s voting, merely for the “offense” of exercising the right to select their leaders. Despite the threat to their lives, more than three-fifths of eligible Iraqis went to the polls.
Considering the danger that Iraqis faced to vote, should it not trouble us that many Americans can hardly be persuaded to vote even when it is extremely safe and convenient?
In addition to the terrorist violence in Iraq, there was another negative in the Iraqi elections. While the United States and its coalition partners that liberated Iraq deserve credit for Iraq’s free elections, the U.S. government wrongly pressured Iraq to impose a gender quota in the voting. At least 25 percent of Iraq’s lawmakers must be women. That is achieved by rigging the election system to some extent. But as critics rightly point out, despite free U.S. elections, only 17 percent of the members of our House of Representatives are female, and only 15 percent of our senators are women.
Iraq should have truly free elections. It should not have “social engineering” gender quotas.