To the editor:

I took a look at this For the People Act to see what it was about after reading the letter from Sonia Leerkamp. What this act tells me is that it would give more power to the federal government, for one, and make it much easier for fraud to be committed. It is also interesting that this was passed with no conservative support. While the list that Sonia stated may need to be addressed in some fashion, I do not see this bill as a solution.

1.) Improvements in registration, as an individual issue and not a government one. There is plenty of time between elections for those that would like to get registered, but there may be a small percentage that have moved into the state and need to be expedited. That could be done when getting their driver’s license and license plates, as an example.

2.) Improvements in voter ID should be handled by the state. The bill is calling for online registration, which in my mind leaves the door wide open for fraud. This area needs some work for sure. ONLY AMERICAN CITIZENS HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE in our elections! Another issue here is that of people who have passed away. The states need to do a better job of keeping up with this, but this is a state matter and not federal.

3.) Uniform early voting, which again seems to be a state issue. This should be an easy fix with the polls staying open longer or to have a two day election period.

4.) Access to absentee ballots. This does not seem to be that big of an issue to me and should be easy to fix, but again this is more of an individual and state issue than a federal.

5. and 6.) have been addressed above as state and individual issues.

The bottom line to me is that We the People need to be more active in our state and local governments. What I see is that our elected officials are not doing the job they were elected to do because we are not paying attention. Look at what happened at the school board. There were a lot of facts brought up but were not addressed by the board. Now maybe they were aware of these facts and had taken these into consideration, but they should have stated such. Instead, one got the feeling that their mind was made up ahead of time and the people were ignored.

Good people of Brown County, get involved. Know the people that you are voting for. Let your voice be heard and not just on election day, but every day. It has to start at the local level. Our country depends on us!

Respectfully,

Rick Hoke, Brown County