Letter to the editor
It is an election year and yard signs are beginning to appear. The one I see most along my route around town says LET US VOTE AT FHSU.
My first impression was that the folks at FHSU could not vote. A Google search informed me that was not it at all.
It was not about whether you could vote at FHSU. It was about where you could vote.
If you are a registered voter in Ellis County, you vote in the precinct assigned to your permanent address. There are five precincts within the city of Hays.
They are located strategically to give all voters equal access to vote. There is no precinct location that requires a voter to travel more than 2 miles to vote in Hays.
Each voting location needs to have plenty of parking and is ADA accessible. Finding locations that meet those requirements is not easy.
Our community steps forward when asked. Precinct polls are in Sternberg Museum, Hays Recreation Center, the VFW Hall, Messiah Lutheran Church and the Smokey Hill Country Club.
All provide convenient and accessible places to cast a ballot. It seems to me that the question about where to vote is not one of need but one of convenience.
We live in a country where voting is a right and a privilege. We are a country where the people decide how and by whom we are governed. If we do not vote, we give up our voice.
The yard signs and the energy behind them would be better used if they said.
GET OUT AND VOTE, our Democracy depends on it.
Two miles to the pols is not an inconvenience.
-Cathy Van Doren,
Hays resident