Plenty of problems with this election

Richard Pratt, Las Vegas

Friday, Nov. 9, 2012 | 2:01 a.m.

Thank God! The election is finally over. Never in my life have I gone through something so painful and unpleasant for so long.

I must say that I voted this year, but I am not particularly proud of it. In fact, in a couple of the races, I was downright embarrassed to vote for any of the candidates.

I didn’t vote because of all the men and women in uniform who have served our country to preserve our right to vote. I did that 40 years ago in Vietnam, and protecting your right to vote was the last thing on my mind then. And I didn’t vote because it was my “civic duty.” Civic duty is a feel-good thing, and I didn’t feel good about voting in this election.

The reason I voted this year was freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has ruled that money is free speech and can’t be suppressed.

To my knowledge, the court has never ruled that voting also is free speech, so it could be suppressed.

More states are passing laws that in order to express your opinion as to who should govern us, you have to prove that you are a U.S. citizen.

Yet, there is no law anywhere that requires a person to show a picture ID in order to throw buckets and buckets of money at campaigns.

For the conspiracy theorists worried about noncitizens influencing our elections, how do you know that they aren’t already doing it by donating to super PACs?