EDITOR:

Is voting really important? The definition of democracy is a system of government where the power of governing is vested in the people through elected representation.

In this case, the people mean all people living in the area boundaries defined as citizens in our case except felons in some case. It is clear we have never accomplished this.

When the country was established, two things allowed for the existence of slavery, and the rejection of minority and women. At first only white men with property could vote, and voting rules were left to the states. Since in many states, white property owners had slaves and were seen as property. Slavery continued.

After the civil war, the 13th,14th, 15th Amendments to the Constitution were passed ending slavery, granting citizenship to negroes, and protecting the right to vote. By 1870, the states in the South created a set of Jim Crow laws that effectively nullified the amendments, and violence that was permitted by local and state authorities.

Women got their vote in 1920. The Voting Act of 1965 tried to reestablish the 15th Amendment for all citizens. In the 2020s, the US Supreme Court gutted much of it under the label of states rights.

The point is that the rules including voting rules we live under and government decisions are made by minorities when the majority does not vote and pass protections to vote in fair elections for every citizen.

Gilbert Engel

Niagara, Wis.