The Bottom Line, Ministries Christian News, Articles, & Poetry 
With rights always come responsibilities. In our country, the right to vote has been a hard-fought privilege, and all eligible citizens should be able to exercise their voting rights. But this is where the responsibility comes in…
Currently, there is controversy over the fact that government-issued identification is required in order to cast your ballot in many states. In order to protect our voting system from fraud, 30 states currently have laws stating that in order to vote you must show government-issued ID. In 10 of these states, the ID is free of charge.
Critics argue that this is a violation of the right to vote because the law unfairly targets low-income and minority voters. Many of these citizens struggle to afford the fee for identification, and finding transportation to get to the proper facility is difficult. Another issue seems to be the limited business hours of these facilities.
Our elderly and disabled citizens should be first priority in this situation, and state governments need to work with these members of our society to ensure that they have proper ID and help in reaching facilities for assistance. But what about others who simply do not want to pay for their identification, or spend the time it takes to get to a facility and go through the process of registering to vote? It may truly be a struggle to save the money needed, and it may take part of a day to go through the registration process, but this is a small price to pay compared to the cost to so many throughout our history. Those who fought to secure our freedom to vote in this land would surely have gone through a little inconvenience! Maybe a little difficulty is good for us, a reminder of the value of this freedom to vote…
The intent of these laws is to ensure honesty and integrity in this great process of casting our ballots to choose leadership for our country. Proverbs 16:11 reminds us of the importance of honesty in all we do: “God cares about honesty in the workplace; your business is His business.” Lets keep integrity in our voting system!
Amen!
Voting is not a ‘right’ it is a privilege that comes with responsibilities. To vote you MUST register. I don’t understand why some feel it is unreasonable to require identification to verify that the person who registered is the person who has shown up to vote. There has been voter fraud going on for many years. Those who want to abuse this privilege will probably find a way to do so.
But no person desiring a legitimate election has reason to be offended that there are measures in place to make sure that it is.
Anyone needing assistance should contact their local board of elections. I am sure they would be more than willing to assist ANYONE who is having difficulty obtaining an ID.
Thanks, Melinda! I really wanted to write on this topic after I read an article in our newspaper about the president saying that people were being denied the right to vote because they needed ID. I couldn’t believe it!
I live in Illinois–where no ID is required–and I am surprised every time I vote and they don’t ask for it!