The Vote That Counts Is the Vote That's Counted

Every political leader in America, it seems, has at one time or another waxed poetic about the privelege and responsiblity of voting. Lyndon Jonson said, "voting is the first duty of democracy." John Kennedy declared, "the ignorance of one voter impairs the security of all." "The ballot is stronger than the bullet," Abraham Lincoln proclaimed. "Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the people themselves," Franklin Roosevelt observed. But as I step into the voting booth today I won't be able to shake one thought: sooner or later they all lie to us. Another thought nags at me, putting paid to all the lofty sentiments from the past. A fully informed electorate is essential to a healthy democracy. What are we to think then of the obsession with secrecy that has been a hallmark of recent administrations?