Honesty and Integrity at the Polls | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I am writing this letter to urge all those who have registered with anyone conducting a voter registration drive, whether it be someone outside Walmart or on a college campus or anywhere else, to confirm that these individuals have indeed submitted your form and that the information you put down has not been altered. You can confirm by going to this site. Note that pursuant to NCGS 163-82.6(a), it is a classtwo misdemeanor for anyone offering to help register a voter to accept that person's voter registration form and then fail to deliver that form to the County Board of Elections in time for the registration deadline.

    It's sad we have to be skeptical.

    In 2005, the Commission on Federal Election Reform made a bipartisan recommendation to states for voter identification at the polls because of a growing lack of confidence in integrity of the voting process. Indeed, after the 2012 election, only 31% of Americans nationwide had confidence in the process. Mistrust and skepticism have reached epidemic proportions. And for good reason. Instances of actual voter fraud have been documented, yet have been largely ignored and have gone unprosecuted. The win-at-all-costs mentality of 1960 is here to stay.

    We all want to help make sure that friends, family, and neighbors exercise their civic duty to vote, and to vote responsibly and intelligently, but unfortunately, we need to also hold one another accountable when we undermine the legitimacy of the process. We were once a representative constitutional democracy, which is our particular form of self-government. Without honesty, integrity, and confidence at the polls, then we really have neither a democracy nor self-government. We have mob rule and a government automatically based on dishonesty.

    This is our country. This is our home. Let's do right by her.