Letter to the editor: Why not make it easier for Montanans to vote? - by Tom Stonecipher

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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The letter writer doesn't want common-sense voter ID laws. He thinks that because there isn't a present problem, there never will be. But somehow he still wants every qualified Montanan to vote, which necessarily admits there are people who are not qualified to vote. This means he favors some people not being able to vote. 

Therefore, he actually agrees with his political adversaries in principle. It's merely a matter of degree.

So we wonder what the big problem is in ensuring only legally able citizens cast a vote, since he otherwise supports the concept. He pretends (without evidence) that anti-fraud legislation will disenfranchise certain groups, but that is just a red herring. People who are motivated to vote will ensure their eligibility to vote, and people who can't be pried from their couches will not vote. 

There's not a thing wrong with that.

He can't come out and say what he really wants, because it's extremely unpopular: He wants anyone to vote. No standards. No voter rolls. No residency requirements. No legal status ascertained.

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Get ready for a double helping of "election integrity" legislation in the coming session, bills which make it harder for Montana voters to cast a ballot in Montana elections. (No, they make it harder to vote when one isn't eligible.)

They will increase the need for not-easily- acquired IDs, (IDs are not hard to acquire.)

ban folks from gathering and delivering ballots from family, friends, disabled neighbors, and workers who live far from the clerk's office, (...and also prevent vote harvesters from submitting faked ballots or pre-sorting ballots cast for the wrong candidates.)

limiting and hobbling opportunities to register to vote, (Like same day voting and motor voter registration, for example, policies that makes it much harder to determine actual eligibility.

We think qualifying for voting, and voting itself, should not be easy.)

trying to shrink the number of Montana college students, (Which means that out-of-state college students should not be able to vote, which we think is quite sensible.)

Natives, (Race card.)

and the less fortunate among us who can vote (These vague, undocumented charges are getting tiring. We also notice how the letter writer perfectly parrots leftist talking points.)

 — it will go on and on. There will be loud, unceasing and untruthful cries about the need to stop voter fraud. I have a dollar which says so. (We hope the issue of voter fraud never goes away, so as to facilitate a continued vigilance over our election system.)

How much voter fraud have we experienced in Montana? (Irrelevant.)

Really, none. Corey Stapleton, our then-secretary of state, did a deep investigation in 2017 into the special election when Greg Gianforte won our House seat vacated by Steve Daines. How many fraudulent ballots did he find, after spending all that taxpayer money? He reported that two — two — possible cases of fraud were being investigated. (Irrelevant. Which, by the way, means that voter fraud does indeed exist.)

Don't believe this? Ask him.

We have a robust and wonderfully clean election regimen in Montana, (Irrelevant.)

a process made possible by decades of honest workers handling and counting ballots in a system which makes cheating virtually impossible. (Why is cheating bad, Mr. Stonecipher? And by extension, if cheating is bad, why is the prevention of cheating bad?)

More needless statues making it harder to vote are enacted for only that reason and nothing more — making it harder to vote, (As mentioned, we think it should be hard to vote.)

limiting the opportunity for Montana registered voters to do so. (By this we suppose he means that people should not be forced to vote only on election day. Or maybe it's the number of polling places. Or the window of opportunity to mail in ballots. At this point we are simply guessing, because the letter writer is making vague charges of voter suppression.)

Why? Why not make it easier, not harder, for every qualified Montanan to vote? (How would we know who is qualified without measures in place to determine qualification? And again, why is it important to make sure people qualify? By existing law, certain people do not qualify, and by the letter writer's own criteria, they are being unfairly excluded. 

Ultimately, the letter writer doesn't appear to be against measures that determine voter eligibility. Or at least, that's what he's pretending to advocate. In actual fact, the Left wants everyone and anyone to vote. Legal, illegal, felons, dead people, people from out of state and even out of the country. The fact that there isn't a problem now is irrelevant, because we can be assured that problems in other states are coming our way.)

Ask your elected representatives and senators, especially those who will introduce these bills come January. I also have a dollar which says you already know the reason.

Tom Stonecipher