This election, the government has decided to make voting a little more difficult.
WASHINGTON — As time has gone on, many have made the effort to make voting easier. Some have the (rather extreme and outlandish) view that everyone should be automatically registered to vote as soon as they become an adult.
“If that were the case, it wouldn’t even be hard to register to vote,” Matthew S. Petersen, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission, told reporters. "And if it’s not hard, what’s the point? Why should it be easy? That’s not democracy.”
Many people have been pushing to make it harder to vote, and the FEC has been a part of this movement. The latest shift toward making it more difficult to vote is a new physical government-ordained obstacle course that voters must overcome in Alabama.
Alabama voting laws are very strict. Votes can only be cast on election day, forms of ID must be at hand, absentee voting can only occur with an approved excuse and voters now must pass a military-style obstacle course.
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“To complete the obstacle course, there’s a physical and a mental strength required to make sure that you really want to vote, and you’re not just some random American who wants a voice,” Alabama Election Division employee Ed Packard said. "It starts with a swim. You have to get across the pool, climb out and dry off because the next course has electric fences you have to pass by without touching. After the ropes course and the hurdles, you have to solve some puzzles on tablets provided. Finally, if you complete all the obstacles and puzzles, you have to show your ID and recite the alphabet backwards. It’s like a sober assurance test, before the actual sobriety test where we breathalyze you and make you pass a drug test. It takes a few hours to get the results, but, after that, then you can absolutely get in line to vote.”
Alabama is encouraging other states to follow suit under the belief that voting right now is simply too easy. The state also wanted to have some sort of new tourist attraction so that people would visit Alabama for a reason other than family.
Marco Omta is a freshman studying music production. Would you complete an obstacle course to vote? Email Marco at mo183714@ohio.edu.
