Let the Shenanigans Begin

On Tuesday there were numerous reports of irregularities and odd happenings coming out of Philadelphia, perhaps the toughest political battleground in the state of Pennsylvania. With the Pennsylvania primary giving Hillary Clinton a reason to stay in the race, the eyes of pundits are now turning to Indiana and North Carolina where primaries will be held on May 6th.

Aside from national attention shifting to Indiana, another way to tell that the primary is looming is the start of election shenanigans in Lake County.

Apparently the good folks over in Gary felt that part of their civic duty involved helping some of the city’s high school students vote early by busing them the county seat of Crown Point for a vote-early field trip. Yes, you heard that correctly: a school district in a city where Obama will probably win a landslide victory bused 200 voting age students on 32 miles round trip just so they could vote early.

(Read more after the leap)

According to one school trustee, the “field trip” was important because these students don’t have time to vote before school and after school they are busy with extracurricular activities. What? The polls in Indiana open at 6am and they close at 6pm. School doesn’t start at 6 am. If you really want to vote why not get up on time for once and go out and vote like the rest of us do?

Of course, this thinly veiled partisan Get Out The Vote effort was couched as helping first time voters exercise their “rights.” Interesting. Can we now expect the Secretary of State’s office going to start calling through the voter rolls before election day reminding people of when to vote? If so, that’d sure save campaigns a lot of time and money spent on phone banks.

I’ve got nothing wrong with helping people vote, but this busing of students to early voting centers is a bit unfair if not unethical. Will county election boards start running buses around various precincts hauling voters to polling places?

The right to vote is indeed an important and sacred right. But like all rights it has a corresponding responsibility. That responsibility includes the responsibility to at least become marginally informed about the issues and the candidates and also the responsibility to make time in your schedule to vote. If the only way you’ll vote is if you’re given a day off from school and hauled at taxpayer expense to an early voting place I’ve got to question whether or not you’re actually mature enough to be making a decision about who is best qualified to lead our government.

Check out this story in the Northwest Indiana Times for more information.