Walt Mares File Photo/Gila Herald: People line up to vote at the Morenci Club in this 2020 file photo. They were practicing one of the most precious fundamental rights and opportunities Americans have.
A skunk smells better than Rep. Fillmore’s vote quest
Column By Walt Mares
Some of the folks in Arizona’s State Legislature never heard of or perhaps have entirely forgotten what it was like to serve in Vietnam during that war. Perhaps they never served in uniform and do not know the feeling in your gut that your tomorrow may never come when facing a very deadly enemy.
Arizona State Rep. John Fillmore is among those who have no idea of what it was like to be surrounded by Americans coming home with missing arms or legs or bodies that died a bloody, violent death. Those Americans not only faced death but also often saw what was destruction that after many years later is impossible to describe. And more unfortunately for some, impossible to forget.
Yet many of those who fought in Vietnam were not even old enough to vote.
Fillmore, who is not a U.S. military veteran, is trying to make it difficult, make that more difficult, for Arizonans to vote. He has even tried to make it possible for the state legislature to reject election results. How dare he! Who is this guy trying to cancel my vote when I damn well earned that right the hard way?
Having the right to vote and having my vote count is one of the main reasons I joined the military during the Vietnam War. And Fillmore along with others like him are trying to make it possible for my vote not to count? To me, it smacks of Communism!
He is one of those buying into the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Too many of his colleagues have already bought into the Big Lie. A big pile of taxpayer money has already been wasted by Republicans in the state legislature via a special audit that proved Joe Biden’s presidential victory in Arizona was legitimate – it is a fact.
Fillmore told the Capitol Times his attempt to make significant changes in Arizona election law is not part of the “big lie conspiracy.” He dodged owning up to believing and attempted to hide his support of the big lie.
He did tell the Times, “I believe that in 2020 we had some serious concerns that were never really responded.” Nor is Fillmore convinced by multiple reports showing there were no major instances of election fraud, here or elsewhere.
“I don’t care what the press says,” he said. “Everybody’s lying to me.”
Really? This says more about his mental health than he realizes. Paranoia, anyone? Yes, Fillmore believes he is being lied to even after a long list of courts across the U.S., including Arizona’s high court, have debunked Trump’s claims of election frauds. Adding to the question of whether some cats, rats, dogs, and horses are smarter than some humans is Fillmore’s desire to return to the way elections were run in the 1950s. He does not trust voting machines and would prefer hand counts of ballots (already done at the county with a select number of ballots).
Is Fillmore looking at a solution to find a problem? So it seems.
There are millions more people in Arizona than there were in the ’50s. How long would a hand count of every ballot take?
Fillmore’s moronic proposal reminds me of hearing that chant in the ‘60s and ‘70s about not being old enough to vote but being old enough to die. I recall seeing signs that declared the same during anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the late 1960s and early’70s. I saw it on national news broadcasts and demonstrations at Adams State, our local college.
For me, it hit home the most in 1970 when I was 17 and in my junior year in high school. I turned 17 that summer and would become eligible for the military draft when I turned 18 in July of ’71. Sure, I intended to serve my country but I could not shake loose the memory of a good buddy, Gilbert Chavez, who was killed in the ‘Nam early in February ’69. He was only 18 when an incoming Viet Cong rocket fire blew him to pieces. He never had the chance to vote although he died in service to America.
Honestly, I was scared to be drafted into the Army and, like him, to never have a chance to vote. His funeral involved a closed casket. At that time, American service members under the age of 24 accounted for half of those killed in Vietnam.
Then came along the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing 18-year-olds to vote. In 1970 Congress passed a bill extending the Voting Rights Act. Wow and double wow!
But wait, there was more. When then-President Richard Nixon signed the bill he also signed a statement publicly expressing his opinion that the legislation was unconstitutional because it had to be ratified by at least 26 states. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with him. What a total bummer, to use a phrase from that time.
So, Congress went at it again and the 26th Amendment was passed unanimously in the Senate on March 10, 1971, and the House on March 23, two months before I was to graduate from high school. (Can you imagine anything passing unanimously today in either body?) But wonder of wonders on July 1, three-fourths of states (38 actually) ratified the 26th Amendment, On July 5, Nixon signed the amendment into law. (It was exactly two weeks before my 18th birthday.)
I do not remember any grand celebrations but there was a feeling that was difficult to describe. I only remember having a feeling of satisfaction. We had become a part of the American freedom that had so long been denied to us young folks – the right to vote. Yup, now were full-fledged Americans.
And Fillmore and his Republican fellow travelers want to take that away from me and those from that era of becoming voting Americans? How dare you! How dare you! To me, it indeed reeks of Communism disguised as patriotism.
Mr. Fillmore and your cronies, go kiss a skunk. That would smell much better than the legislation you are proposing.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
