The Supreme Court is reconsidering the Voting Rights Act (thenewstribune.com, 2-27).

I grew up in the deep South, in Georgia – the only state then where the voting age was 18. My senior year in high school, our civics teacher took all of the 18-year-olds to the courthouse to register to vote.

The room we were in had a fence down the middle, and blacks entered by another door and tried to register on the other side of the fence. I filled out a form and was registered. I watched as blacks were asked to read and explain parts …

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Average voter turnout in the United States is seldom higher than 60 percent.

Just before the Soviet Union collapsed, my uncle came to visit us from Latvia. An election took place during his visit. I was tired after a day’s work; I didn’t feel like going to vote. Anyway, it was a minor, off-year election. When I told my uncle, he exclaimed, “You can’t not vote!” He eagerly accepted my invitation to come along. Of course, they wouldn’t let him go into the voting booth with me. But he got to see how a free people uphold democracy. Just the …

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Re: “Mail-in ballots in focus” (TNT, 10-15).

I was dismayed when Pierce County joined the rest of the state for voting by mail. I was assured by my legislator that it was more cost-effective and efficient. But at what cost to democracy? The front-page article only confirms my fear and dismay.

I have always enjoyed going to the polls. My parents raised me to see it as a privilege and an exciting thing to do. I miss it. I voted by mail for the first time a few months ago only to get a letter telling me my ballot …

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Re: “Mail-in ballots in focus” (TNT, 10-15).

Interesting that the story focuses on mail-in ballots and potential for fraud and error. When our Legislature mandated vote-by-mail for the state of Washington, those of us opposed to this idea raised the very same questions.

Human error, deliberate tampering with results, ballots not counted, ballots never received – we have already seen some of these fears become reality. This is unacceptable. Our future depends on true democracy reflecting the will of the people and the indisputable accuracy of the vote count.

We have taken backward steps from electronic voting and voting …

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The unfortunate Dale Washam saga has clearly demonstrated the fact that who we vote for is important. We voters need to be informed on who we are voting for and we need to hold those we elect accountable for their actions.

Two individuals who should be held accountable are University Place City Councilmen Ken Grassi and Stan Flemming. The legacy that they are leaving the city is that multimillion-dollar monument to civic mismanagement: the UP Town Center. They also leave us taxpayers with some of the highest property taxes in the region.

Now they are pursuing the opportunity to mismanage …

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We applaud The News Tribune’s editorial warning that the 2010 Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court now threatens to hijack even judicial campaigns – along with this year’s elections – with super PAC spending.

We need public financing of campaigns at every level, including judicial campaigns at state levels where judges are elected. To roll back judicial decisions such as Citizens United that have authorized and empowered super PACs and the hijacking of our political process by great wealth, we need an aroused citizenry and a constitutional amendment. It may seem a daunting task to recapture democracy …

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A recent letter to the editor (TNT, 1-21) led readers to believe how ungrateful black Americans have become to withdraw their support for the Republican Party, the party of the Great Emancipator. It must be a mystery, in his view, to see so few nonwhite faces in the recent debate audiences cheering on their potential presidential nominees.

Yes, Democratic Party leaders in the South from Reconstruction to the advent of the civil rights movement initiated poll taxes and supported racial segregation with even the tacit support of non-Southern members of the Democratic Party. Of course, any cursory understanding of history since …

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Does the TNT editorial board read what you print? Leonard Pitts Jr., a black liberal columnist has a penchant for blatantly mischaracterizing conservatives, from writing that conservatives have never helped or stood up for blacks (column, 9-6) – which is preposterous when the Republican Party in 1854 proposed abolishing slavery – to saying conservatives do not want blacks’ votes to be counted (column, 1-7).

Citing South Carolina’s new law requiring photo ID to vote as just a pretense for the GOP-controlled state to suppress black voting is dishonest, and his argument that many blacks cannot afford to …

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