I have requested the names of those registered voters who have refused jury duty because they are not citizens and have been told that this is somehow privileged information. I learned recently that Douglas County has released its list.

Guess what? We found seven noncitizens who are registered to vote here in Washington. Extrapolating, that would mean that all of the other counties combined would have a minimum of 266 illegal voters. Didn’t Chris Gregoire swing the election by 135 votes? What we are seeing is big-time election fraud.

Judge Ronald Culpepper has refused my specific verbal request for the list. Just what is Pierce County Superior Court hiding?

Consider this quote from Paul Weyrich, a well-known conservative and developer of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative lobby:

“Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome – good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

The motivation is obvious. The only issue becomes Americans not being on guard enough to be fooled with faux reasoning for the latest attempt to suppress voting rights.

Every job plan Obama has laid on the table has been defeated and strongly criticized. Their lies would be laughable if they weren’t so serious.

This is the worst Congress ever in the history of America, and it does not bother them. They figure Citizens United and their wealthy coffers will buy the presidency for Mitt Romney. And doing so, their plan for America is a sure bet against America.

How else can you perceive it? They’re against women’s issues, and they disdain children’s public education. They have a thumbs-down attitude toward collective bargaining and unions. They attempt to suppress voting.

We need aggressive action to correct this dirty mess of politics and destruction. If not, it could lead to civil discourse to an alarming degree. Please show up at the polls and vote the obstructionists out of office.

Pitts feels for all the people who couldn’t vote if they had to show ID.

Who are all these people? They must be really saintly because they don’t smoke or drink or see R-rated movies. They also must have some source of independent income as they can’t work; you have to have a picture ID when you fill out your I-9 form.

Do they get food stamps or other welfare? I’ve never applied, but do we just give it to anyone who walks in off the street without any ID? If so, maybe I’ll go down and apply (oops, no – that would be fraud).

If they are independently wealthy, do they keep their money in a shoebox under their bed? You need an ID to open a bank account and to cash checks. If getting an ID is such a hassle, maybe the people who see it as a problem should volunteer their time getting these people to wherever they need to go to get an ID.

Since under Obamacare, everyone will have some form of health care, won’t they need ID when they go to the doctor or hospital? Or perhaps they should work to make it easier to get IDs. Maybe post offices could be authorized to issue an ID.

Voting is serious. If you don’t have the energy to get an ID, are you taking the time to study the issues and candidates? Voter ID should be required in every state.

Why? Because I’ve been looking, in vain I might add, for the candidates’ views on recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions (corporations as “persons,” unfettered donations by political action committees, women’s reproductive rights, equal pay, etc.) as well as immigration issues, Voter ID, repeal of all or part of the Affordable Care Act, etc. The list goes on.

In our area, it is evident that each candidate for federal office is supportive of military issues; it is also evident that every candidate is for a “balanced budget” and for cutting waste in lieu of increasing taxes (at least on the middle class).

Why not inform voters about the real distinctions between them? Let your readers in on what the candidates’ differing positions are on other important issues – not these easy, canned responses to predictable questioning.

Washington state has no voter identification requirements. You can fill out a Washington voter registration form at the Department of Motor Vehicles when you get your driver’s license, or you can go online and fill out the form.

The voter registration form has you check two boxes, asking if you are a U.S. citizen and if you will be over 18 on election day. You provide your name, date of birth, phone number and marital status along with your home and mailing address.

Voting is all done by mail, so there is no requirement to even prove that you are the voter the ballot was intended for. Of course, we all know that there are no dishonest people out there. Right?

Washington is one of two states that issue driver’s licenses to anyone who can pass the test. Again, there is really no requirement for you to prove who you are or that you are a citizen.

Some time back, The News Tribune published a story about how relaxed Washington’s licensing policies had become. As a result, illegals were flying in from other states and getting their license. They can then take those back to whatever state they are living in and trade them in for that state’s license and voting privileges.

I am concerned that we have corrupted, beyond repair, our election process, and through our inaction have had an adverse effect on other states as well.

First off, voters presenting ID is not in the Constitution. What bothers me most about these “voter ID” efforts (more than the voter-suppression idea) is that they are being attempted right before a presidential election.

Shouldn’t this major change to the way Americans have voted for at least the five decades I’ve been alive come in a well-thought-out, comprehensive plan? Also, shouldn’t this effort be started at the voter registration level? Shouldn’t some kind of a study be done to prove that this is totally necessary?

I find it very odd that those who raged for President Obama’s birth certificate long after it was provided oddly don’t have the same fervor for Mitt Romney’s tax returns. The same party that wants everyone to “show your papers” when you want to vote doesn’t want to know how your nominee earned all his money?

Since only 13 cases of voter fraud were detected from 2000 to 2010, I’d err on the side of common sense and say that it’s not a real problem, but voter ID efforts are a great way to reduce the vote of the poor and the elderly.

If you’re going to ask for identification, let’s identify where all Romney’s money came from first, because those realities could be an even bigger issue if he did become president.

I did not follow the logic in the writer’s argument. How does voting by mail lessen voter fraud? A voter does not have to show ID to vote by mail, or am I missing something? Is he implying that signatures can never be forged? Or that there will be poll workers at each mailbox checking identification?

What bothers me about this letter is the unproven assertion that somehow “liberals” don’t like buying stamps or walking to a mailbox. How is that relevant to the writer’s argument? Has it now become the norm for The News Tribune to accept any letter from a writer making unfounded, uncivil generalizations about those with whom they disagree politically?

Let’s see if I can play the same game. Conservatives despise government and don’t like paying taxes, so consequently all conservatives hate the military (funded by taxes) and love buying things on credit (wars in Afghanistan and Iraq).

How is the silly statement I just made about conservatives any different from the writer’s specious comments about liberals? When is The News Tribune going to apply standards to letter writers who spout malicious, irrelevant discourse?

It is now common for politics to creep its way into anything and everything, so it’s not surprising that recent efforts against voter fraud have been politicized.

The goal of these efforts is to ensure that only U.S. citizens over 18 can vote in elections. How is that unlawful or even distasteful? It is only constitutional.