Will "The Sword" kill off voters this election?

Seaira Christian-Daniels

@seairacdaniels

NPR's election blog contributors say that foreign policy will be a big issue this debate season. 

Politicians often discuss foreign policy in terms of wars in Afghanistan or protests in Libya, but what about foreign policy concerning the general sentiments of foreign nations toward the U.S. government and Americans.

Amy Goodman, reporter for DemocracyNow!, dropped the raw carnage of foreign opinion in the faces of the audience when she visited Ohio University Saturday evening.

She said foreign nations view the United States government as the sword and its people as a shield.

Fast Forward: NPR Voter Suppression Coverage

Texas Secretary of State Esperanza “Hope” Andrade threatened to suspend state funding to the Houston, Texas, voter registrar’s office if he waits until AFTER the November elections to remove voters from the Social Security Administration’s dead voters list.

The list has caused many elderly and disproportionately black and Latina voters to be informed that they are not eligible to vote this year because they are dead.

Andrade is the first Latina to become Texas’ Secretary of State.

Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade

Agreeably, voting laws in Texas are not equivalent to all states' voting laws; however, if the states, which compose the United States, institute a policy which takes away one of the most essential American rights, it makes US citizens foreigners in their own country. 
Foreigners who have no access to participating in their own government.

The United States government is supposed to be a body representative of the many diverse people who compose our nation.

 Why then, should this group be a sword that fatally disallows Americans to exercise their constitutionally given right?

I applaud Wade Goodwin for covering this story in a state that some may write-off as historically Republican.

So, while our current president and White House hopefuls battle for more votes during the presidential debates, they should keep in mind this fact:

There can be no free, democratic election without voters.