Nelson Mandela

I was taking a lot of flack the last few days over a picture of Nelson Mandela (right) I posted on a website thread bemoaning “GOP and tea bagger” efforts to curtail voting rights through calls for Voter ID requirements.

After posted said picture, my observation that Mr. Mandela was perhaps a member of the GOP or a “teabagger” were not universally accepted, let alone recognized for it’s succinct grasp of the prevailing political landscape.

Shocker, I know …

So a few of those opposing voices went off to perform their due diligence, and research the Great Mandela T-shirt Fiasco. No doubt looking for the smoking coals over which to roast my tender flesh.

Funny … I never heard back from them.

So I went to see why they all disappeared. Where they vanished to?

I was concerned for their safety!

Maybe this is why they never made it back:

• Nelson Mandela apparently wasn’t “forced” into accepting voter ID requirements from his white overlords, as some claimed.
• The South African Constitution was signed – by Nelson Mandela – in December 1996. (Mandela was elected in 1994.)
• As the country’s FIFTH constitution, it was written by the Parliament, consisting of those elected along with Mandela in 1994.
• The Constitution has been praised as one of the most progressive on the planet.
• That Constitution allows for and supports a rigorous election integrity process far more stringent than anything GOP lawmakers have proposed in this country.

An October story from a South African news outlet explains in advance of the nation’s 2014 elections, “aspirant voters must produce a valid South African identity document when registering to vote and when voting.” That means procuring one of “three forms of official identification.”

One of those identification forms is new: a so-called “smartcard ID.” Although a new addition to the process, one election official said that “accommodating the new smartcard IDs has not been difficult.”

Voter registration in South Africa involves registering to vote on one of a handful of designated days or by making an appointment in advance at a Municipal Elections Office. According to the nation’s governing agency for elections, the Election Commission of South Africa, to register and vote you must meet three criteria:

• Be a South African citizen;
• Be at least 16 years old (you can only vote from age 18); and
• Have a green, bar-coded ID book, ID smartcard or Temporary Identity Certificate (TIC).

Online voter registration and voting are not allows. “You have to apply for registration and vote in person with valid ID,” reads the government’s elections website. Two of the common forms of identification, passports and drivers licenses, do not suffice for election ID purposes.

Now my internet friends of an opposing political persuasion were adamant that Mandela was only “doing what he had to do” to break the iron chains of white oppression. I’m pretty sure they didn’t anticipate that such a freedom-loving figure as Mandela would be the agreeable enactor of a rather sane approach to protecting the sanctity of the voting booth.

I won’t say, “I told you so …”

Oops …

I just hope all my friends are home; safe and sound; and enjoying their crow for dinner!