Letter to the editor: Suppressing our votes

In 2019, landmark bipartisan voting reforms became law in Pennsylvania, including “no excuse” mail-in voting: a rare instance of giving the people what they wanted. The measure was timely as a pandemic overtook the commonwealth and the nation the following year, impacting the ability of individuals to vote safely in person and for polling places to attract workers to toil for little money for a long day.

Now, 14 Republican members of the Legislature, including 11 who voted to allow mail-in voting ballots, have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of that provision.

What has changed in two years? Simple: Mail-in voting did not provide the Republicans an advantage, and Donald Trump, the man who has hijacked the party and from whom most of today’s Republicans take marching orders, does not like the system.

These shameless elected politicians would return us to the most inefficient and expensive means of voting, one designed for the 19th century.

I hope my fellow Pennsylvanians will join me in remembering the parties to the lawsuit: Dan Moul (Adams), Barry Jozwiak and David Maloney (Berks), Barbara Gleim (Cumberland), David Zimmerman (Lancaster), Aaron Bernstine (Lawrence), Frank Ryan (Lebanon), Timothy Bonner (Mercer), Timothy Twardzik (Schuylkill), Kathy Rapp (Warren), Bud Cook (Washington), Bob Brooks (Westmoreland) and Mike Jones and Dawn Keefer (York). All of them represent Trump country rural areas.

Like their fellow Republicans in other states, their motivation is transparent: partisan politics and a desire to suppress the vote. They are anti- democratic hypocrites and frauds — menaces to democracy.

Oren Spiegler

Peters