I’m grateful to Lawyers and Collars for organizing ways for clergy and lawyers to help on election day. Clergy and laity are encouraged to volunteer at voting places around the country and especially in the nine battleground states of Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin.
I cannot remember a time when the air we breathe seems so full of contempt and division in my beloved home state of Michigan. Texas Republicans have challenged drive-thru ballot drop-offs set up around Harris County, home to Houston and its suburbs. The practice had been established in the summer. Negating these votes would have required more than 127,000 voters to recast their ballots, unlikely given the election was two days away. Both challenges, one in the Texas Supreme Court, and a federal district court, ultimately failed.
However, Republicans brazenly attempt to disenfranchise voters around the country. Located in a Los Angeles Latinx neighborhood, damaging 100 ballots. The California Republican Party admits having placed 50 fake ballot boxes out for public use. This is the very conduct Republicans scream about in accusing Democrats of cheating and voting fraud.
A plot to kidnap our Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, was recently foiled by the Michigan State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The conspirators planned to take her to Wisconsin to “try” her for treason and execute her. Our nation needs a healing balm to heal the sin-sick soul of our broken society.
I could serve as an election protection attorney or a poll chaplain
Because I am an attorney and an Episcopal priest, I’ve spent some time reflecting on how best I can serve. I sensed that being a peacemaker (hopefully) calls me very strongly for this election. In past elections, I’ve been a poll watcher, making sure that people can vote if challenged and eligible. This work is vital to our democracy. I could also serve on a voting hotline to answer legal questions about voting issues. Many attorneys around the country are also serving in this essential capacity.
However, something our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said recently has resounded in my head, heart, and soul ever since. He said,
“Partisan neutrality does not mean
moral neutrality.”
I pledge to practice partisan neutrality. I pledge to aid in ensuring the integrity of the election via wise, fair, and morally forthright decisions.
Free Speech does not mean intimidating voters!
While we can pass out campaign literature for our candidates and issues, nearly all states have a buffer zone, a safe space between a certain distance and the polling station. In Michigan, it is 100 feet. I will observe whether that safe space is encroached upon by either Democrats or Republicans, even though I am a lifelong Democrat. The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has upheld the use of campaign-free buffer zones to protect the integrity of elections and the rights of voters to cast their ballots free from intimidation. Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191 (1992).
I will also be watching for voter intimidation, which has many forms:
- Taking down license plate numbers
- Following people around the buffer area
- Blocking the entrance to the polling station
- Aggressively approaching a voter’s vehicle
- Verbal harassment — making racial or ethnic comments, questioning another’s right to vote, obscene language, etc.
- Verbal threats
- Threats when someone is wearing a paramilitary or “official” uniform
- Brandishing a weapon (wherein I will immediately call the police)
- Violence inside or outside of the voting precinct
- Conduct reasonably believed to be escalating to violence inside or outside of the voting precinct
- Violating a voter’s personal space
- Loitering near a voter while carrying a firearm
I will stand with voters being harassed, and I’ll try to be a peacemaker, or at least bring some light instead of heat. I’ll take notes and videos to document these events.
Eleven years later after the Burson decision, SCOTUS ruled that free speech does not include “intimidation in the form of ‘true threats,’ ‘ where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence’ against another person or group. Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 360 (2003).
SCOTUS set these voting rules for a foundational reason — integrity. If we do not conduct our elections fairly so that all eligible voters may cast their vote in safety and without fear of reprisal, then why would we even bother? What separates us from dictatorships and fascism? If those in power rig the election, then why have one at all? Rigged elections are just staged productions for orchestrated coups.
Each of us is created in the image of God
Christianity and my Episcopal tradition teach that we are all created in the image of God. Therefore, each person is entitled to voice and vote, and no one has the right to say otherwise.
The Great American Experiment, as James Madison called it, affords free speech to its citizens and a representative government whom we appoint through voting. Voting determines who will lead the people, and therefore, as many of the citizens as possible must be heard.
The United States of America can be so much better than this!
Importantly, I also believe that we as a nation are so much better than what we have witnessed by those in power to suppress the right to vote, especially for people of color. Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought that we could blatantly allow the erosion of the right to vote. I am outraged. I’ll stand in the cold, I’ll be cursed out and threatened, I will not participate in this coup-like movement to disenfranchise the poor, people of color, and immigrants who have the right to vote just as I do.
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Jesus taught the Beatitudes in his Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel Matthew. Great things happened on mountains when our prophets and savior ascended them. They could see the big picture, the great vistas before them, full of hope and promise. And Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” (Mt. 5:8)
This general election will go down in history as one of the most significant, no matter who wins.
And, I will be at my assigned polling place protecting the rights of every voter in a nonpartisan spirit of integrity and peacemaking. However, I will not be morally neutral. I will not support harassment, threats, violence, or other forms of voter intimidation on my watch, you can be sure of that.
Prayers for Election Day
I ask for your prayers for the safety of voters at my station, and for my safety. I offer this prayer for my mission today and the missions of everyone working on the election in every capacity. Here is a prayer for peace attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument
of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
