At the core of our democracy lies our voting system. Think of it like an operating system that runs on your computer or smartphone.
In a well-functioning operating system all your programs, email and social media sites come up seamlessly. You don’t think much about the operating system unless it becomes corrupted. Then you realize that things aren’t running so smoothly anymore. The same is true of our election system. It is the platform on which our democracy runs, and as long as voting is fair, accessible and verifiable our democracy runs smoothly as each person votes and has their vote counted equally with other voters.
Yet, our voting system can become corrupt and in many instances it has.
One of the most pronounced corruptions of our voting system has been partisan gerrymandering. This is a system whereby one party uses sophisticated analytics and algorithms to carve up districts so that one party will always have an advantage over the other party. When this happens the democratic process is threatened. Our state Legislature is now considering fixing this bug in our system by passing a law that would have nonpartisan commissions draw up our districts so that our elections can stay fair, honest and clean.
Recent polls find that 71 percent of all Americans want these kinds of bipartisan commissions. Let your state senator, legislator and our governor know that you want the same.
WAYNE FULLER
Concord