Column: Banning weapons in polling locations would assist safeguard voting rights

As leaders devoted to selling solidarity between Black and Jewish communities, we all know our communities have a protracted historical past of working collectively to guard and advance core constitutional rights, significantly in relation to voting.

That shared historical past consists of tragedy and triumph, hard-fought victories paid for with accidents, loss of life, and being the targets of extremist violence: the 16th Avenue Church bombing; the bombing of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple; and the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, referred to as the Freedom Summer time murders, to call only a few. For a lot of in our communities, the battles of the civil rights motion are a excessive watermark of our unity and collaboration.   

We additionally share a historical past of preventing hate, particularly extremist hate, that has for too lengthy threatened and brought about bodily violence in our communities.  Merely invoking the names of U.S. cities underscores the purpose: Charleston, Pittsburgh, Poway, Buffalo. We all know too effectively the hazard, violence and loss of life brought on by extremists fueled by hate and armed with highly effective weapons.

As political threats intensify, Michigan Dems look to ban weapons at polling locations

Because the menace – and actuality – of extremist and hate-motivated political violence grows, we discover that we should proceed to combat collectively to guard the proper to vote. Our work should additionally focus immediately on defending our instruments of democracy – areas the place we vote and petition our authorities, the officers and volunteers who energy that democracy, and the individuals searching for to train their elementary rights. 

The historical past and current of the combat for voting rights has turned, partially, on not simply whether or not individuals technically had the authorized proper to vote but in addition whether or not they can be secure in exercising that proper. Defending the proper to vote has at all times meant defending voters. Our election employees and elected officers likewise should have the ability to do their essential work in security. 

The threats and incidents which have marked current elections throughout the nation, together with armed patrols of poll drop containers, and armed people planning to converge on poll counting areas, underscore the necessity for motion. So, too, do the photographs of armed extremists roaming the halls of the Capitol in Lansing in April 2020.

Even within the absence of precise violence, the threats are a type of intimidation and coercion. Intimidating people into not exercising their rights is solely one other type of depriving people of these rights. We would like individuals exercising their rights to vote and/or to petition their authorities not solely to be secure but in addition to really feel secure.  

It’s previous time to take primary steps to safeguard the areas the place core constitutional rights are exercised. Prohibiting the carrying of firearms into or shut to those areas will safeguard these areas surely, in addition to in notion.  

Furthermore, doing so will shield the elected and unelected employees and volunteers who work at these websites and make it attainable for the remainder of us to train our elementary rights. Lately, threats in opposition to native elected officers have considerably elevated.

A current examine by the Anti-Defamation League and Bridging Divides Institute discovered that threats or harassment of election officers or ballot employees span 21 states and make up about 34% of all incidents tracked. Michigan was one of many states with the very best incidents of threats and harassment to ballot employees. An astonishing 13% of all threats to election officers or ballot employees throughout the U.S. got here from the state of Michigan.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson every have prioritized defending our Capitol and our polling locations, voter counting facilities and poll drop containers. The Legislature is taking on payments to ban firearms to be carried in or inside 100 toes of these areas. The Capitol Fee is contemplating a proposal to bar the carrying of firearms within the state Capitol. 

We admire this dedication to safeguarding the areas the place we train these core constitutional rights, and we’re not alone. A July 2022 public opinion ballot discovered {that a} 65% majority helps banning weapons from polling and vote depend areas. The identical examine discovered sturdy assist for efforts to cut back firearms within the state Capitol. 

It’s time for motion. We come collectively right this moment to induce all who care about the proper to vote and the proper to petition our authorities to hitch us in safeguarding the train of these rights.