Reader Marc Perkel submitted the following letter to the editor this week. Want to submit one yourself? Write to jacob.bourne@patch.com and we'll publish it.
Eighteen percent of Americans over 65 don't have the required photo ID to vote in Republican controlled states that passed voter ID laws. Republicans are denying seniors the ability to vote in an election where Republicans intend to make severe changes to Medicare and Social Security. Republicans are cheating seniors out of their right to representation.
The way I see it is that when a party has to cheat to win they are admitting through their conduct that they can't win on the merits of their position. I think that it is Un-American to cheat seniors out of the right to vote and that the rest of us who still can vote should stand up for our seniors. After all, we will someday become seniors ourselves and when we take care of our seniors, we are taking care of ourselves and the values that America stands for. We have to show Republicans that dishonesty is not an American value.
Furthermore, Candidate Mitt Romney this week made the world a more dangerous place today when he made stupid comments about the murder of our ambassador in Libya. Romney reminded the world that America is just one bad election away from going back to Bush, or even worse. That undermines the world's confidence in American leadership. Even Bush knows to keep his mouth shut until he at least figures out what's going on.
I'm Marc Perkel - And I approved this message!
Where do you stand on the issues? Do you agree with Marc? Disagree? Tell us in the comments!
The Republican plan is to fully fund medicare - instead of robbing it of 875 million like Obama did. Obama is bankrupting medicare every day...... Obama does not want to save Medicare but replace it by a death panel where any new improvements in medical science are heavily taxed (in place through Obama care already - 10 per cent penalty) He will also decide what age you can no longer have heart pace makers, and other devices that until now was a decision between the senior and the doctors. Now it is on the federal goverment hands. What a stupid bunch of lies this writer spews.... Shameful...
Voter fraud is so small that most states don't consider the effort worth perusing since a single vote has such little weight and voter fraud has stiff penalties. So it does seem suspicious that states requiring voters to require photo ID may have another agenda. Fake photo IDs are so easy to obtain that they are close to useless. As for Mitt Romney’s statements about the murder of our ambassador, he will be judged one way or the other by every word he utters just as President Obama has been judged since becoming president. He can no longer freely utter his personal feeling without carefully weighing the consequences. Being president is much more difficult than he can imagine.