Christopher Jones, Minot

Help! My civil rights are being violated! This dawned on me as I followed the never-ending debate about voter suppression. As I understand it, the basic requirements for voting in all states are along these lines:

1) Register in advance.

2) Provide identification at the poll. ID is free, and some states will bring one out to your house if you ask.

3) Don’t campaign in or near the voting line.

4) If voting in person, vote on Election Day or on one of the early voting days.

There are more rules for absentee voting, handling spoiled ballots, etc., but the whole thing takes up maybe a small pamphlet. These simple rules have lately been rebranded as “restrictions” and anyone who is not allowed to roll out of bed and onto a community organizer’s party bus on Election Day and go cast a vote and partake of a free buffet in line while naked, unregistered and without ID, is now considered to be “suppressed” and deprived of their rights.

The lines at the polls have been rebranded as a latter-day Bataan Death March, with the final few dozen feet of the line a particularly dangerous area where buzzards circle, waiting to pick the flesh from the bones of those who perish from thirst, because naturally anyone who shows up naked, unregistered and without ID will also not have the foresight to carry a bottle of water and a pack of peanut butter crackers, and they would certainly not possibly be able to take a swig from the drinking fountain at the polling place.

But I’m registered to vote and I have an ID and my own water and crackers. So what’s my civil rights problem?

The state and federal tax code, that’s what’s my problem. If the few basic voting rules/restrictions listed above are the modern equivalent of Jim Eagle, or can possibly be described as reminiscent of Bull Connor and fire hoses and attack dogs, then what about the multi-thousand pages of “restrictions” in the tax code, and the fact that I can no longer fill out my own tax return without recourse to expensive computer software, which often punts on the important issues and tells me to “fill in this square over here legally and correctly” when, you know, if I knew how to fill in those squares legally and correctly, I wouldn’t need the software, would I?

I hope some ACLU staffers read this paper, because I would really like to know: if the basic 4-rule voting process is rife with abuse and restrictions, do I have a valid civil rights case against the labyrinthine, Byzantine, libertine, obscene, and lots of other ine/ene/een-words, tax code? Please hurry. The tax filing deadline approacheth, the buzzards are circling overhead, and I don’t see any candidates for local office lurking nearby with fresh supplies of water and crackers.

What’s that? I’m exaggerating and mischaracterizing some things?

Sorry, I thought that was how we communicate nowadays.