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How will Californians vote this coming November? Should citizens
go to the polling booth? Apply for an absentee ballot? Or should the State mail
out ballots to every person on their list of registered voters? There is no doubt
that Nancy Pelosi and her minions will continue to push for mail-in ballots, an
option fraught with danger here in the Golden State.
There are around 20 million registered voters in the California. Just
how many of these people are still alive, registered at more than one address,
or are actual US citizens, is a mystery.
My own experiences shed doubt that everything is on the up
and up here on the West Coast. For example, my mother’s name was still on the books
at the polling station several years after she passed. Then a few years ago I had
filled out an absentee ballot before my plans changed. With my completed ballot
in hand, I entered the polling station and asked the worker to please cross my
name off her list. She would not do it. I explained that I was about to drop my
ballot into the box and wanted to make sure I was checked off the list. Why?
She asked. So that no none could come in and claim my name and vote, I said.
Why would anyone do that? She asked. Then she got snippy and told me to
get out of the way because other voters needed to get inside. I don’t know if
anyone actually claimed they were me, but I am pretty sure my absentee ballot
was never counted as results were broadcast before any precinct person had time
to open all the absentee ballots.
As to illegal aliens voting, there is plenty of reason to be
concerned. California basically merged voter registration with the DMV a few years
back. This is especially troubling when you understand that one can be here
illegally and get a drivers license just as easily as a citizen, if not easier.
And once you get that license, you are automatically added to the voting roles.
Try as I may, I have found nothing that assures me that
illegals are not automatically registered to vote when they receive their driver’s
license. My own experience with DMV is proof their methodology is questionable.
I have been a registered voter since I was 18. Yet when I renewed my driver’s license
last year I received a congratulatory letter from the State telling me I was
now registered. Obviously, nothing was cross-checked to show that I did not
need to be registered again.
Nancy wants mail-in ballots and I am sure she would have a
response to my concerns. Even if she has
not considered the above problems with voter registration, how does she plan to
insure all those California voters will get their ballot in the correct language?
Currently, ballots are available in English, Spanish, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer,
Korean, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese, Punjabi, Hmong, Syriac, Armenian, Persian,
Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Formosan, Ilocano. Nearly twenty languages other
than English. And, I kid you not, they have an American Sign Language voting
option. CA Voter Info Guide
In fact, to get a 100% English ballot is not an option. All
my voter information and ballots are always bilingual, English/Spanish.
Granted, I speak Spanish well enough to read a ballot, but why should I have to
do that? It is completely disorienting, trying to fill out a bilingual ballot in a
dingy garage, with glaring florescent lighting, and chattering people.
Then there was last March, on Super Tuesday. I walked in,
gave my name, (no ID ever required), and the lady tried to hand me a Democrat ballot. I explained that I was non-partisan and that is the ballot I wanted.
We don’t have any, was her reply. Couldn’t I just take a democrat
ballot? I told her to check to make
sure. I was prepared to sit there until they delivered the proper ballot, if
necessary. Ten minutes later, after digging through box after box, she handed
me a bilingual English/Chinese non-partisan ballot.
Personally, I love languages. I speak several of them. But I
should be able to vote in the language of our nation, which is English. My
father’s family were all bilingual, but they voted in English. It would never
have occurred to any of them to have done otherwise. My mother’s immigrant parents learned English when they arrived in the early 1920’s. They
received no language accommodations and would not have accepted any. How is it that the
pride in being American and speaking English has been lost?
I do not trust voting integrity in California, and neither should anyone.
