To the editor:

Never before has a sitting President responded to demonstrations in the Capital by white national chauvinist groups (in German the acronym is Nazi) so that he could address them and snivel about having lost a national election. I can’t possibly be the only American saddened by this moment.

For those who believe “We” have never lost an election in the south before, or if you describe yourself as “not a racist” and then add a conjunction, allow me to explain:

Joe Biden won the 2020 election in November and will be President in January 2021.

There has been discrimination preventing some Americans from completing their right to the voting franchise in the past and in the very recent past. In Georgia, for example; Stacy Abrams “lost” the election in 2018, after her GOP opponent, Kemp “purged” 1.4 million voters from the voting rolls. Abrams went on in 2019 to spearheaded legislation to expand the right to vote by mail in Georgia, and other reforms to increase voter access for all American citizens. When poll workers count your (mailed in) ballot without looking at your skin color, Georgia may be one of the places where the count thereby became more accurate. That may be how a fair election now could look different than elections in the past.

The Georgia Governor was Kemp, a Republican, when Biden won the Georgia federal election in 2020. No significant anomalies were found in the various lawsuits around the November 2020 election. That November election was audited, recounted, the two ballots cast by dead people in Georgia were found, and the state certified the November 2020 election that Biden won by over 11,000 votes. It turns out, when counted, Black votes matter.

It may be that (white) Republicans in the south have “won” in previous contests due to something other than the will of all the citizens enfranchised to vote. There may have been some mischief in the vote count in the past. That does not cast aspersion on the November 2020 election, but perhaps explains the continued need for the civil rights act going forward. We as a people are not doomed to repeat history. People can become better, more inclusive, we can rise to the current occasion. I invite my fellow Americans to join me in embracing a democracy where we acknowledge all the votes. May we continue forward demanding all votes cast by American citizens are counted. All the votes. All the citizens. Every election fair, every vote counted equally; one per citizen.

Ellen Starbird

Cape Coral