Ralph Quintana
From Ralph Quintana Specail to the Arizona Daily Star
The following column contains the author’s opinion and analysis:
I served in the US Army for four years. I spent long distances overseas outside of my family, rose to the rank of sergeant faster than most of my recruiting classes, and injured my back so badly that I’ve now lost a lot of strength and feeling in my legs.
My father served and my son plans to serve too. As Lincoln famously said, I served so that “the government of the people by the people, for the people, should not perish of the earth.”
Such a government demands that “the people” be given the opportunity to choose our leaders, to have our voices heard – in short, to vote. That is the right of all citizens in the sense of the constitution that I wanted to defend.
And now my own state government is threatening to make it harder for me and thousands of other disabled veterans to cast our votes because they are afraid of whom we will vote.
We need laws that make it easier for all eligible voters to cast a vote so that people can elect leaders who will make the change we want.
I’ve been voting by mail for years and I like the system we have here in Arizona because my disability makes it difficult for me to stand in line for long.
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