STATEMENT BY ALAN JENNINGS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR COMMUNITY ACTION COMMIITTEE OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY

The County of Northampton is embroiled in a battle over there need to improve their voting machines to protect against voter fraud. CAC LV plans to weigh in at the Council meeting tomorrow evening. Susan Dallandan will represent the agency. She is very knowledgeable about the issue. She will make the following statement on behalf of our executive director, who will be out of town. That statement is as follows:

There is no greater privilege that we Americans have than participating in our democracy through the power of the ballot box. Our right of free speech enables me to stand before you and ask you to do the right thing. But the right to vote, the power to vote, the obligation to vote, the ability to vote, is a treasured right guaranteed us more than 240 years ago.

That right to say what we believe and to petition the government would have minimal benefit without the right to choose those who are being petitioned. If every American is not guaranteed that right, then our democracy falls short.

If those who can, do, but those who cannot, do not, then we have no claim to being among the great nations in history. Any obstruction that keeps any voter away from their polling placecalls into question the legitimacy of that election. We have the technology to make sure every single person – black, white, brown, male, female, property owner or pauper, educated or not, housed or homeless, strong healthy and able-bodied or saddled with limitations – every single person can exercise their privilege of voting.

County Executive Lamont McClure and his administration are proposing a system that has, as far as I can tell, every element needed to ensure that those who need our government most, those with any of the vast array of physical limitations so many people bear, are able to be proud participants in the democracy we hold so dear.

On behalf of the Community Action Lehigh Valley, mindful of how our system leaves so many behind, I urge you to acquire the system that makes our democracy as powerful as it can be. And that, to me, appears to be the XL system. By supporting this choice, you can do your part in ensuring that every resident of Northampton County, regardless of their physical limitation, can vote.