In the summer of 1964, civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney were involved in the "Freedom Summer" campaign, an ambitious effort to register African-American voters in southern states in the U.S.
The idealistic activists worked in Mississippi, a state with one of the worst records of Jim Crow and violence against black Americans. The particularly vicious racism of the state is well documented in lynching, blood and human degradation.
According to Wikipedia: "This registration effort was a part of contesting over 70 years of laws and practices that supported a systematic policy of disenfranchisement of potential black voters by several southern states that began in 1890."
Goodman and Schwerner, white Americans from New York City, and Chaney, an African-American from Mississippi, disappeared during the course of their registration efforts.
After two months their bodies were found. They were "abducted and murdered in an act of racial violence".
During the investigation it emerged that the Philadelphia, Mississippi Police Department, adherents of the local White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the Neshoba County Sheriff's Office were involved in the brutality against the men.
Disgust and outrage over the murders, including the involvement of police officials, helped the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The dramatic expansion of the number of black Americans registered to vote was critical to the organizing strategy of the U.S. Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
Achieving voting rights was an end in itself. It was also instrumental in the use of political power to force other changes and to help achieve racial equality and social justice.
At a prayer breakfast in 1957 in Washington D.C., Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of the power of the ballot. His remarks were titled "Give Us the Ballot". His refrain: "Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights ...
"Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law ...
"Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men of good will ...
"Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of the South who will do justly and love mercy ...
"Give us the ballot and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's decision of May 17, 1954."
In 2017, a small group of Bahamians are crying, "Give us the ballot and let us spoil it because we don't like our choices."

Immature
What a profoundly immature response. Many times in a democracy the choices are less than ideal. But this is when we must dig even deeper into a wellspring of possibilities and find creative responses to the times.
King argued: "So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind - it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact - I can only submit to the edict of others."
In possession of such a right and responsibility, arguing for a mass spoiling of the ballot is infra dig for those whose ancestors yearned for such a right.
It is difficult for many to recall that black Americans were once more supportive of the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, and more suspicious of the Democratic Party, particularly Southern Democrats.
During the 1960 presidential election Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in the South. For a time his whereabouts were unknown. His wife, Coretta Scott King, feared for the worse. She reached out to many political officials, including the Eisenhower administration.
Because of the racial politics of the time, Democratic contender John F. Kennedy gamed how to respond to the call for help. In the event, he and his brother Robert Kennedy reached out to Scott King and lent their assistance to ensuring the safety of King.
Grateful for the assistance, King and other civil rights leaders in turn lent their support to Kennedy's presidential bid. This may have helped to tip the razor-thin contest in favor of Kennedy, who barely beat Republican Richard Nixon.
Voting matters, both as a hard-earned civil right and as a means of political power for the electorate. The ballot is an extraordinary power and instrument of citizenship, representing various democratic values.
It represents and symbolizes the struggle for the right to vote; including by women, the descendants of slaves and outcasts in countries such as India. The right to vote also represents a shared history and common experience for citizens of a nation and for a global citizenry.

Reckless
A campaign to spoil ballots would make sense in dictatorial regimes like the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. But such a campaign is reckless and juvenile in a democracy.
Through the mass spoiling of ballots, we will send a message to those in the world struggling to gain the right to vote that we are taking this right for granted and are prepared to abuse this right in a cavalier manner.
The nominally baked campaign led by a women's rights activist, supported by two professors from The University of the Bahamas, is falling flat and is rightly being roundly criticized.
The campaign is an affront to the memories and sacrifices of civil rights martyrs like Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney. Certainly they did not die so others could engage in a mass campaign to vandalize ballots.
The "spoil the ballot" campaign is intellectually lazy and intellectually pretentious. That it is being touted by educators is sad. They are setting a bad example for their students.
Their arguments smack of a condescending elitism by individuals who appear not to appreciate the hard work of politics and government, and who may deign to believe that by refraining to vote for any of the choices before them, makes them somehow purer and superior.
The leader of the "spoil the ballot" campaign is a women's rights activist. With women's activists around the world arguing forcefully for women to use their votes to advance women's rights, the argument at home to spoil the ballot is, to put it gently, curious and remarkable.
The domestic activist stated: "Our target audience is the group of people that have decided that they will not register to vote because there is no option that appeals to them, there is no candidate or party that they are prepared to support with their 'X'.
"We've chosen that group of people because we want to ensure they still have a voice that they can use and that they can make a statement that says I do care about my country and the direction it takes."
What voice are they having if they spoil their ballot? They will render mute their voices. She further states: "I care enough to tell you the options that you put before me are inadequate. We want to put the power back in the hands of the people, even if they feel powerless."
The supposed reasoning here is illogical. How exactly are people gaining power by spoiling a ballot? By spoiling the ballot they have even less power because their vote will not count.
If the activist and the professors want to offer something profound and transformative they might launch a citizen action network, registering thousands to vote.
The network would publicize the number of members in each constituency. They would insist on candidate forums and debates in as many constituencies as possible, helping to hold candidates and parties more accountable.
The network could insist on issues such as political party reform and better campaign finance laws, among other issues.
As constituencies are often won by small margins, such a network could have a tremendous impact on the election. The network could also use social media to promote certain democratic objectives, while remaining nonpartisan.
Candidates and parties will pay rapt attention to hundreds of voters of such a network in each constituency, who demand to be heard and who can reject or vote for them on election day.
This is how we can begin to improve our democracy and aggressively push the parties in a better direction, instead of wasting energy and time on a nonsensical response which will likely have the opposite effect of what the spoil the ballot advocates may intend.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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