READERS WRITE: NOV. 16

ajc.com

Nitpicking vote shouldn’t be allowed

Stacey Abrams’ campaign wants to stretch the rule of law to suit its needs. Without laws, we don’t have a country, but an anarchy. To ask that the voting rules for citizens be ignored is downright illegal. It is a travesty for counties to be ordered by the court to count absentee ballots rejected for “arbitrary” reasons, such as a mistake in a birth date or missing information, or provisional ballots cast by voters whose information often could not be verified at polling places. A local paper reported that Fulton County on Friday “reported rejecting 1,556 of the total 3,722 provisional ballots cast. Nearly 1,000 of the ballots were disqualified because they were out of county, and another 581 were not registered to vote. Three were rejected because they weren’t U.S. citizens.” How in the world can this be justified, let alone tolerated, by law-abiding citizens?

LOU SOUDERS, MARIETTA

Extreme voices atypical of Left and Right

Regarding the letter, “Decency No Longer Matters for Today’s Dems” (Readers Write, Oct. 14), the writer listed a series of events by the far left. What struck me most was that the piece could have easily switched out “Democrats” for “Republicans” and listed horrifying events from the far right. In any group, there are extreme voices that must be suppressed because they dismiss decency and commit horrible atrocities. I like to believe 99 percent of us are decent, reasonable people and that we all want the same things but disagree how to get there. Coming together to understand that the other side has valid points will be the only way we will ever get past the hyperpartisanship. Perhaps we first need to realize the 1 percent of extreme voices do not represent all Democrats or Republicans, and that assuming this only hurts the bridge to understanding.

KRISTIN DIVER, DECATUR