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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
Saturday, December 1,2018
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
Submit a letter: letters@gainesvilletimes.com
The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
LETTERS
Don’t support a
party that works
to suppress votes
Lines in our recent election were very long,
often stringing out into the streets. Some people
waited three hours or more, and it was a rainy
day. In light of this, I call for the state to have a
credible plan to accommodate 100 percent voter
turnout in a timely manner for every polling loca
tion in the state. We should never accept less.
Stacy Abrams has conceded Republican Brian
Kemp will be elected governor. Kemp’s campaign
spokesman derided Abrams’ effort to have all bal
lots counted before calling the election as a “dis
grace to democracy.”
If Kemp was sure of his position, what was his
hurry to declare victory? Was it the same hurry
that produced the Brooks Brothers riot in Florida
during the 2000 presidential election? There is an
infamous photo of these protesters in which 10
people in front are identified as Republican con
gressional aides from Washington DC pretending
to be local citizens protesting the recount. They
were flown in just for that purpose. That’s dishon
est. I keep a copy of that photo to remind myself
what real election-related fraudulent activity
looks like.
As the public demographic changes, credible
political parties modify their political platform
to better appeal to a majority of voters. However,
instead of modifying its platform positions to gain
votes based on merit, one party has chosen to win
elections by taking calculated steps to suppress
minority votes.
Georgia’s “exact match” law is one method
used to accomplish this. The law requires all
information on a voter registration application to
exactly match records kept by Georgia’s Depart
ment of Driver Services. An application may fail
for simple mistakes like a missing hyphen or
apostrophe, or a suffix like Senior or Junior, or
use of “Tom” instead of “Thomas.” An Associated
Press analysis shows the exact match law affected
53,000 voter registrations in Georgia, mostly
from African-Americans. Kemp wanted them all
thrown out.
Other methods used to suppress votes:
(1) Photo-ID requirements passed on a dishon
est claim that voter fraud was rampant and posed
a threat to election security. Simple math shows
that was a lie.
(2) Closure of 214 polling precincts in poor and
minority districts in the state of Georgia since
2012.
(3) Purging of voter roles to remove citizens
who may not have voted recently. This opens the
door for fraudulent activity by outside contractors
selected by the party in power who apply parti
san criteria and operate with wide discretional
latitude.
(4) Computer modeling used for demographic
“stacking and cracking” to draw gerrymandered
districts intended to disenfranchise minorities.
Bruce Vandiver
Lula
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Letters and other commentary express the
opinions of the authors and not of The Times.
Your government officials
Area school boards
Hall County Schools: 711 Green St., Gainesville,
770-534-1080, www.hallco.org
Gainesville City Schools: 508 Oak St. NW,
Gainesville; 770-536-5275, www.gcssk12.net
Buford City Schools: 2625 Sawnee Ave.,
Buford, Georgia, 770-945-5035, www.
bufordcityschools.org
President and his foes need
to put away the hammers
Dear President Trump:
You and I both know you
won’t see this letter, but
that’s OK. I am going to feel
better having written it. For
one thing, it will confuse
my friends and confound
my enemies, many on
both sides of the political
spectrum who can’t seem
to grasp the concept of
middle ground. You must
be either a rock-bound,
hard-nosed, guns-everywhere-but-the-
Georgia-State-Capitol conservative or a
government-knows-best, open-the-bor-
ders-even-to-terrorists, boys-and-girls-
share-the-same-bathroom left-leaning
liberal. Believe it or not, a few of us are
neither.
I wrote earlier suggesting you tone
down the name-calling (particularly
with late-night TV hosts who feed on
that stuff — it’s called “ratings”) and
was assured by one of your close confi
dants that the letter would get into the
White House. I knew that was a crock.
I’ve had some dealings with previous
White House administrations. That
letter ended up in the hands of some
junior functionary who has never even
seen you in person, let alone delivered
you a letter.
But it is the Christmas season and I
am the gift that keeps on giving. So, I
give you some more advice: Stop the
name-calling. Please.
I’m not sure where you learned the
art of insults, but I discovered it on the
grammar school playground. I found
out that if someone called me a name, I
could retaliate by calling them a name.
Conversely, if I disparaged a playmate,
chances are they would disparage me,
too. Sometimes, it would
lead to fisticuffs. (Today, it
would involve lawyers, the
police, social workers and
intonements about rampant
bullying, but that’s a subject
for another day.)
Thankfully, I grew out of
that phase, although I have
been known to digress occa
sionally on these pages and
lay into some pompous soul
that deserved it. But I am not
the president. You are. You set the tone
for the national mood and it is not good
at the moment.
Name-calling seems to delight your
base. It also encourages the other side
to call you names and that delights
their base. Back and forth it goes. I, for
one, am not sure what all of that accom
plishes other than to remember the old
story about the guy who kept hitting
himself in the head with the hammer.
When asked why, he said because it felt
so good when he stopped.
The irony is that in the midst of the
cacophony, you have done some good
things. Despite recent market correc
tions, stocks are at an all-time high.
Unemployment is close to an all-time
low. You seem to have that guy with the
bad haircut in North Korea thinking
twice about running his mouth. While
I’m no expert on the subject, I think
your tariff strategies are going to work
in the country’s favor. But you stay
embroiled in controversy. Some of your
making, some not.
You could do worse than look to Ron
ald Reagan as a role model. He had his
fair share of fake news and partisan
criticism to deal with, but it didn’t seem
to bother him. He had a great sense of
humor which he used effectively. He
let people underestimate him at their
own risk. Reagan didn’t belittle people.
He managed to get the Berlin Wall torn
down without insulting Russian premier
Mikhail Gorbachev. When the nervous
nellies in the State Department objected
to the timing of his demands, he quietly
reminded them who was president and
who was not. And the wall came tum
bling down.
My concern is that if the name-calling
and insults on both sides continue, a lot
of fair-minded people are going to get
tired of it and seek an alternative — like
a third party that is philosophically
somewhere between guns in churches
and boys and girls in each other’s bath
rooms. When that happens, then will
come coalitions as we have in Europe
today and governing by a minority. That
is a frightening prospect.
We are Americans first and political
partisans second. There isn’t anyone
among us that doesn’t want to see Amer
ica great. We also want to see it unified.
As one of your predecessors, Abraham
Lincoln, said, “A house divided against
itself cannot stand.” (By the way, he got
that from the Bible, Matthew 12:25, in
case you are wondering.) Our house is
badly divided these days.
If you want to make America great
again, I would suggest you and your ene
mies put away the hammers and start
trying to find some common ground.
It’s Christmastime. Can’t we all get
along? Please?
Dick Yarbrough is a North Georgia
resident whose column regularly appears
Saturdays. Contact him at P.0. Box
725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; online at
dickyarbrough.com; or on Facebook.
DICK YARBROUGH
dick@
dickyarbrough.com
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Hall County cities
Braselton, Town Hall, 4982 Ga. 53, 706-654-
3915, www.braselton.net.
Clermont, Town Hall, 109 King St., 770-983-
7568, www.clermontga.com
Flowery Branch, City Hall, 5517 Main St.,
770-967-6371. www.flowerybranchga.org;
Police Department, 770-967-6336, www.
flowerybranchga.org/police
Gillsville, City Hall, 6288 Ga. 52, 770-869-9000,
gillsvillega.com
Oakwood, City Hall, 4035 Walnut Circle,
770-534-2365, www.cityofoakwood.net,
Police Department, 770-534-2364, www.
cityofoakwood.net/police.aspx
Lula, City Hall, 6055 Main St., P.O. Box 99, 770-
869-3801, www.cityoflula.com
Northeast Georgia counties
Banks County: Board of Commissioners, 150
Hudson Ridge, Suite 1, Homer, 30547. 706-677-
6800
Dawson County: Board of Commissioners, 25
Justice Way, Dawsonville, 30534, 706-344-
3501, www.dawsoncounty.org
Forsyth County: Board of Commissioners, 110 E.
Main St., Suite 220, Cumming, 770-781 -2101,
www. f o rsy t h co. co m
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She Stmts
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