Letter to the Editor

Your view: Facts on voters

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

"If you exclude the felons, the mentally ill and those who for whatever reason don't register, you have a huge group of people."

Both felons who have completed parole and people who have mental illnesses unless classified under very specific levels of incompetence can and and quite frequently do legally vote in Missouri. If a person takes a step back and reconsiders these facts, for a moment they would discover that this cross section refers to populations which have more than voter registration drives. If you place a significant number of voting former felons in the African American Community, you have people who are part of a population with a massive voter turnout. Additionally, The Disability Vote Project has been making gains with each election.

The fallacious self-serving argument presented amounts to nothing short of shoveling stigma against people with disabilities to the end of supporting talking points of the legislation. I can only hope the bias that appears does not inform the writer's opinions.

Although I personally oppose the bill, I have heard reasonable arguments made in it's favor. As a matter of fact supporters who wanted to create this bill with the assurance of protections for everyone worked very hard to do so during the end of the last legislative session.

The Standard Democrat would do well to encourage columnists to check the "facts" they use in the future to try to support their arguments.

Sincerely, Rene Powell