National Voter Registration Day

Greetings, Friends, Family, And Future Constituents: Tuesday, September 20 was National Voter Registration Day. Emphasis must be placed on suffrage. Voting rights are so important that men and women that sit on election commissions, in city councils and state capital buildings, and Capitol Hill; are fighting aggressively to suppress suffrage rights. It is so important, there was a Civil War to determine citizenship layered with suffrage rights (i.e., the 15th Amendment). The right to votes is so important, the ancestors were denied the right when the United States Constitution was written. and the architect of the document had political brawls to count their "wealth" as 3/5 human in order to have increased political representation and expand their voting power. The right to vote is so important, that gradually non-white males who owned property gained access to the ballot box. The right to vote is so important, that legal action coast to coast is taking place to protect it. The right to vote is so important in the Second Congressional District that the governor refused to sign the racially gerrymandered map that diluted 23,000 African American votes and divided Pulaski County into three (3) districts (1, 2, and 4). Our late 36th President Lyndon B. Johnson expressed, "The right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies." The late Political Strategist Rev. Frank Watkins lectured, "There is no explicit, fundamental, affirmative, individual, citizenship or federal right to vote to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. has a “states’ rights and local control” voting system. And since voting is a state right, with virtually no enforceable national standards, we have ended up with multiple and varied election systems in the fifty (50) states (plus District of Columbia), three thousand one hundred forty-three (3,143) counties (or county equivalents), thirteen thousand (13,000) local voting jurisdictions that administer one hundred eighty-six thousand (186,000) precincts, all organized on what amounts to a “separate and unequal” voting system, mostly controlled and managed by partisan local election officials." Suffrage rights are significant to the vitality of any democratic society, especially Arkansas politics. In a book co-authored by Rev. Watkins, he expressed, "A right to vote amendment would strengthen another important voting component, that of equal opportunity. If democracy is government "of, by and for the people", then in a representative democracy, a republic, there is nothing more fundamental than the right to vote. The logical democratic extension of the right to vote is the right to have every eligible voter with the actual ability to register and voter, to have your vote counted equally with all other voters, and for all candidates running for office to have an equal opportunity of winning-i.e., to be elected. Maximum voter participation optimizes political representation, strengthens democracy and increases government legitimization. Minimum voter participation ensures less representative government, weakens democracy and makes any government less accountable." The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) enfranchised African Americans and naturalized citizens from Asian, Central and South American, and African nations. A thrust of the law became evident and had great stock, influence, and potency in the 2008 and 2012 (the election and re-election of President Barack Obama), 2018 and 2020 (Democrats gaining and increasing power in both chambers of Congress), and soon to be the 2022 General Election. The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. argues we need power, programs and progress, but in that order. Power starts with the vote. It is where all other power is concentrated and built. All other rights, programs and progress flows from the right to vote. Come November 8, 2022, our county clerk office, election commission, and secretary of state office in Arkansas and those across the nation ought to reflect the will of all people from every socioeconomic status, color, creed, nationality, gender, and sex. The Democratic Party is the path forward. Yet, Arkansas has "drank the Kool-Aid" to believe we are Republican. As a result, the Grand Old Party (GOP) is claiming and reclaim what was and ought to be Democratic seats. It is going to take a heavy and full-throated initiative to overcome this history, strategy, and tactic. We must grow the electorate over the next nineteen (19) days. Let the data show and remind us that a minority is speaking for a majority. Source: United States Census Bureau Data For Arkansas As Of July 1, 2021 Arkansas Population Estimates: 3,025,891 Number/Percentage Voting Age (18 And Older Residents): 2,142,330 (70.8%) Source: Arkansas Secretary of State, Election Division Second Congressional District Statistic As Of August 31, 2022 Number Of Current Registered Voters: 468,540 Statewide Statistic As Of September 15, 2022 Number Of Current Registered Voters: 1,785,663 Statewide Statistics Number Of Registered Voters In 2018 General Election: 1,784,015 Number/Percentage Of Ballot Cast In 2018 General Election: 898,793 (50.38%) Number Of Registered Voters In 2020 General Election: 1,828,811 Number/Percentage Of Ballots Cast In 2020 General Election: 1,223,777 (66.91%) Number Of Registered Voters In 2022 Primary Election: 1,762,024 Number/Percentage Of Ballots Cast In 2022 Primary Election: 457,856 (25.98%) Second Congressional District Total Turnout 2018 General Election: 253,453 Statewide Statistics Voters Purged Between 2016 General Election And 2018 General Election Conversion Issue: 30 Convicted Felon: 6,822 Death Notification: 39,107 Duplicate Registration: 7,793 Inactive Status/Did Not Vote In Two (2) Federal General Election Cycles: 69,104 Incomplete Application: 104 Mental Incompetent Judgment: 108 Transferred Registration/Moved Out of County: 12,833 Request By Voter: 638 Total: 136,539 Second Congressional District Total Turnout 2020 General Election: 332,503 Statewide Statistics Voters Purged Between 2018 General Election And 2020 General Election Conversion Issue: 18 Convicted Felon: 4,317 Death Notification: 37,185 Duplicate Registration: 3,876 Inactive Status/Did Not Vote In Two (2) Federal General Election Cycles; 116,781 Incomplete Application: 94 Mental Incompetent Judgment: 57 Transferred Registration/Moved Out of County: 12,448 Request By Voter: 560 Total: 175,336 2022 Primary Election Turnout (Total): 123,289 Unopposed Candidates Pulaski County Democratic Results: 28,508 Republican Results: 30,203 Cleburne County Democratic Results: 289 Republican Results: 4,736 Conway County (Unavailable At Time Requested) Democratic Results: Republican Results: Faulkner County Democratic Results: 3,464 Republican Results: 16,141 Perry County Democratic Results: 276 Republican Results: 2,115 Saline County Democratic Results: 2,733 Republican Results: 17,214 Van Buren County Democratic And Republican Results (Combined): 2,596 White County Democratic Results: 772 Republican Results: 9,321 Voters Purged Between 2020 General Election And 2022 Primary Election Conversion Issue: 21 Convicted Felon: 2,445 Death Notification: 37,419 Duplicate Registration: 3,884 Inactive Status/Did Not Vote In Two (2) Federal General Election Cycles: 128,638 Incomplete Application: 59 Mental Incompetent Judgment: 47 Transferred Registration/Moved Out of County: 8,525 Request By Voter: 457 Total: 181,495 The pulse and power of Arkansas’ Second Congressional District (AR-02) is held in the vote. This 2022 Midterm Election let's take Central Arkansas Onward, Forward, Upward, and Outward. Happy National Voter Registration Day! Notes: If elected, Dr. Quintessa Hathaway will break a glass ceiling for Arkansas as among the first persons of color and first African American woman to ever win a U.S. House of Representatives seat from the state. Statistical data is not collected in unopposed primary elections at the state level.

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