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Voting Quotes

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Voting Quotes

“Don't vote for someone just because they're a part of a certain party. There have been many great leaders from the main parties, and their greatness has been based on their abilities/skills, their knowledge, their experience and their intellectual prowess. Don't let their title or party membership sway you. Look for someone who is capable, competent and responsible, who is willing to put people before power.”

PoliticsDemocracyVotingElectionsMeritocracyVoting RightsVoterOscar Auliq Ice
Book:The Secret of Greatness
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“The violence of Jim Crow has given way to craftier present-day methods of disenfranchising marginalized communities, according to this stirring history of American voting rights. Thomas begins by recapping laws that historically prevented Black people in segregated Southern states from voting, including exorbitant poll taxes and absurdly complicated “literacy” tests required of Black would-be voters but not white voters. More brutal methods were also used, the author notes; Black Southerners who tried to register to vote were often fired, evicted, arrested, beaten, or even killed. Thomas goes on to explore today’s subtler means of voter suppression. These include voter ID laws that disproportionately disqualify minorities who lack official documents; laws that reduce the numbers of polling locations or make absentee voting harder; purges of voter lists; and restrictions on who can vote. Thomas weaves in detailed narratives of voting-rights milestones, like the 1965 voter registration drive and marches in Selma, Alabama, that led to police violence and galvanized the passage of the Voting Rights Act; he also explores later Supreme Court decisions that weakened the VRA and contemporary efforts to restore it. Throughout, the author spotlights voting-rights heroes from Bob Moses, who was beaten while leading a 1961 Mississippi registration drive, to Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia who founded Fair Fight Action, which registered thousands of voters and helped deliver Georgia to Joe Biden in 2020. Thomas combines deep dives into voting law with vivid, dramatic retellings of epic civil rights battles; his prose is lucid and perceptive, with occasional elegant perorations on the sacredness of the franchise. (“When people lose the power to vote, they lose the ability to choose their defenders. They lose representatives who understand, care about, and work to protect their rights. As a result, the US as a whole loses its voice.”) The result is a captivating history that shows how relevant the defense of voting rights remains. An erudite and engrossing look at the perennial struggle to safeguard the cornerstone of democracy.”

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Author:Kirkus Reviews (Starred)
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“Guardians of the Vote: History, Heroes, and the Legacy of Voting Rights—1960s v. Today” by Jet Thomas, Ed.S., a retired educator, is an essential text covering all aspects of voting in the United States of America. It focuses on how Black Americans, along with other minority groups, have suffered from unequal and often biased circumstances that have suppressed their participation in this cornerstone of democracy. Thomas covers the history of voting with particular emphasis on the events that led to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s; he features both well-known and more obscure figures who were leaders in creating change – whom he refers to as “Guardians of the Vote;” and the concerns we are facing today due to decisions by the Supreme Court that have weakened the Voting Rights Act. He exposes and explains the current tactics of political maneuvering to circumvent the rights of citizens who are exercising their right to cast votes. Journalist Tavis Smiley contributed the foreword, which describes how the individual reader can become a guardian of the vote by increasing their involvement in the process, with education and training from supportive organizations, making every effort to vote in every election, and then instructing children on the importance of voting and the history of civil rights empowerment. The foreword functions as an outline for what the reader will encounter in the body of the book, as discussed in its nine chapters. Many readers will realize that much of the material that Thomas presents was never covered in their own educational experience, at least not in-depth, and depending on the era of their school attendance, in discussions of current events – this reader/reviewer can attest to very little, even though the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed less than a decade before my own high school graduation. In retrospect, and with consideration of my memories of the coverage presented on the major network news broadcasts of the time, that seems quite shocking. The Introduction offers an excellent overview of the history of key events related to voting in the United States. Thomas then offers nine highly detailed yet very readable chapters covering topics that include discrimination methods found in communication, voter intimidation and restrictions, political manipulation, a study of pertinent legislation, a survey of key voter advocacy groups, and profiles of leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement. The text is amplified with graphic introductions to each chapter that provide a timeline of historical events. There are also numerous photos of pertinent materials, important historic and well-recognized figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and Congressman John Lewis, along with the individuals he profiles as “Guardians of the Vote.” These visuals provide additional interest and context to the narrative. The author has compiled and organized a vast trove of information to educate and inform readers on the importance of making their voices heard through voting. He also strives to acquaint them with the obstacles Black Americans and other minorities face when attempting to vote, and solutions for remedying this very large problem facing our democracy. His in-depth research and careful documentation are highly evident. In addition, he provides a helpful glossary and references to assist his audience. Readers from high school age onward will come away with new information that will aid them in becoming “Guardians of the Vote” in their own right. Knowledge truly is power when the goal is positive change. “Guardians of the Vote” by Jet Thomas, Ed.S. is a book that should be used to teach history and current events in every high school classroom, in college courses, in community study groups, and in political organizations. It is an important book, and I recommend it to every current and prospective citizen of this country.”

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Author:Reader Views
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“It was rather a choice between suffrage and slavery, after endless blood and gold had flowed to sweep human bondage away. Not a single Southern legislature stood ready to admit a Negro, under any conditions, to the polls; not a single Southern legislature believed free Negro labor was possible without a system of restrictions that took all its freedom away; there was scarcely a white man in the South who did not honestly regard Emancipation as a crime, and its practical nullification as a duty. In such a situation, the granting of the ballot to the black man was a necessity, the very least a guilty nation could grant a wronged race, and the only method of compelling the South to accept the results of the war. Thus Negro suffrage ended a civil war by beginning a race feud. And some felt gratitude toward the race thus sacrificed in its swaddling clothes on the altar of national integrity; and some felt and feel only indifference and contempt.”

SlaverySouthVotingAfrican AmericansBlacksRace RelationsReconstructionSuffrageVoting Rights
Book:The Souls of Black Folk
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“A subtle but effective way of encouraging an irregular voter is by slightly altering your vocabulary when you ask questions. For reasons that are unclear, people’s internal identity is only loosely connected to their actions—until they’re reminded of the discrepancy between the two. Use that to your advantage by emphasizing the identity of being a voter rather than the act of voting.”

PoliticsDemocracyVotingElectionsMeritocracyVoting RightsVoter
Book:The Secret of Greatness
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“When it comes to our democracy, and who we determine to have the right to vote--our most sacred of rights--patience is no virtue. We must never be patient when someone else's rights are in the balance. We cannot wait on laws, or elected officials, or anyone else. The only virtue when it comes to the right to vote is impatience.”

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Book:Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
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“Contact often has the effect of hardening hostilities, not dissolving barriers. This effect is common in politics. When Jesse Jackson was running for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, his percentage of the white vote was consistently highest in those states with the fewest blacks. Whites with the most actual contact with blacks were least likely to vote for him. The same was true in 2008 during Barack Obama’s Democratic primary campaigns. He won the highest percentages of the white vote in states such as Iowa, which has few blacks, and the lowest percentages in states with large black populations. Bernard N. Grofman of the University of California, Irvine has found a reliable political correlation: As the number of blacks rises, more whites vote Republican—and the less likely they are to vote for black candidates. It is whites whose knowledge about blacks is filtered by the media rather than gained first-hand who have the most favorable impression of them. The alleged benefits of diversity seem illusory to the people who actually experience it.”

PoliticsRaceMediaVotingMedia ManipulationContact TheoryHostilities
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“Politicians can be stupid, and most of them are so; they can be devilish and dishonest, and most of them are so; they can be charlatan, and most of them are so, but as long as the people who vote for them are not stupid or devilish or dishonest or charlatan, they can never come to the power!”

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Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan
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“As the Washington Post reported in March of 2016, US elections ranked dead last among Western democracies. And, this is not because of Russia or Vladimir Putin. Rather, as the piece explained, it is because of the faulty, non-standardized election processes across the country...”

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Book:The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Russia
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“Whether we are speaking of the philosophical history of the concept (universal suffrage) or the contemporary reality of its application, everyone stops somewhere. They all set a limit, even if that limit is the requirement of adulthood (a completely arbitrary classification if there ever was one). This unwillingness to apply the principle completely tells us something: First, it tells us that almost everyone knows that there ought to be some sort of qualification for electoral participation; and second, it tells us that no one knows exactly what this qualification ought to be. Because everyone agrees, even if unconsciously, on the first point—that qualifications there must be—then we can consider this an implicit acknowledgment that universal suffrage, even where it is preached, must be considered a purely sentimental notion which no one is actually willing to implement. We may then set about examining the second point, concerning the necessity and nature of the qualifications that ought to be set before the voting citizen.”

DemocracyVotingUniversal Suffrage
Book:The Case Against the Modern World: A Crash Course in Traditionalist Thought
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“What hand is holding the voting "trump card" that sold the peoples' souls? It starts with a knowledge of truth and the purpose that governments were Divinely designed for....today government looks darkly extraterrestrial in light of the truthprint! All people (without a segregated stand: you better know when to hold, em fold em...walk away and run from these political pimp runs and governance guns - it will never ever be about you - no matter who is coming to the party - they-are-all-in-the-same-gang B-B-B-BANG!!!!”

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Author:Tracey Bond
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“In the same way I had managed to overlook the truth of my state’s history in the rosy optimism of my worldview, I never really had cause to notice my whiteness. I didn’t have any impetus to until November 8, 2016, happened. I thought that I understood privilege; I’d studied it in college and pushed against injustice where I saw it. I volunteered for organizations like Planned Parenthood, argued in the face of conservatives who rolled their eyes at Black Lives Matter, and marveled in my gorgeous awakening. But my whiteness, up until that day in November, had allowed me to believe we were ultimately moving forward. Yes, people of color were being shot in the street, conservative lawmakers were trying to push anti-LGBTQ legislation in other states and on the national level, but we were waking up. We had a black president and the recognition of same-sex marriage, and my little activist heart, in all of its whiteness, just believed that things always get better. Because in whiteland, that’s the way it goes. The bad guy will always lose. But then we elected the bad guy, and everything I’ve ever believed to be fundamentally true was incinerated and pissed on. —Sarah Saterlee”

VotingWhite PrivilegeElection 2016
Book:The Nasty Women Project: Voices from the Resistance
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“The majority of these old farts are content to crash out in a drunken stupor on the backbenches. They just want to pick up their company directorships at £200,000 a year, claim for everything they ever spend personally on expenses and make sure not to rock the boat. I have better things to do with my time than to waste it by voting a different yarn-spinning joker-in-the-pack in. Whoever's in power is not going to affect me in any way. And if you believe otherwise then you can truly nail your colours to the mast of stupidity”

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Book:100 Common Sense Policies to make BRITAIN GREAT again
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