Bill Cassidy

Stephanie Grace's column, “When politicians choose their voters, not vice versa,” should be a wake-up call for all of us. It's time we think about voting as a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.

The 26th Amendment (lowering the age at which one could vote) passed faster than any other constitutional amendment. Its rationale was that if young men could be required to fight and possibly die for their nation in wartime at 18, they could not be denied the right to express their opinion with regard to their government's decision to engage in war until the age of 21. Inherent was the idea that voting is a form of expression that could not be restricted when important issues are at stake for those voters.

In 2014, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “There is no more basic right in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.” One of the ways he mentions is the right to participate by voting. That should lead us to conclude that closed primaries, gerrymandering in any form and bans on ranked choice voting are abridgments of the right of a substantial number of voters to express their political views to the fullest extent possible.

Perhaps that idea is what the framers had in mind when they warned us about “factions,” and what George Washington had in mind when he warned in his 1796 farewell address that political parties posed a threat to liberty and the promise of republican government.