Jim Pawlukiewicz is a disabled Army vet who served in Vietnam. But while he could wear a uniform, he couldn’t vote: Pawlukiewicz came to the US at age four as a WWII refugee, and despite applying for citizenship, a series of bureaucratic delays and mix-ups stood in his way. The elderly Pawlukiewicz began to cry when he finally received his naturalization papers in 2018.
Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris spoke last year about expanding the right to vote, but people like Jim Pawlukiewicz didn’t come up. Who did?
The Boston Bomber.
In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother planted bombs at the Boston Marathon that killed three people–including an eight year-old boy. But to Sanders, that shouldn’t stop him from participating in our elections.
The Vermont senator supports letting prisoners vote, and he was asked at a CNN-hosted in April of 2019 if that includes people like Tsarnaev. His response? “I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people.”
Sen. Kamala Harris was a less committal, saying, “We should have that conversation.” Harris later backtracked, probably because she knew that enfranchising terrorists wouldn't be a popular move.
Military personal defend our rights, and that includes the right to cast a ballot. However, not all of them can exercise it. Seventeen year-old recruits can’t, and neither can immigrant soldiers who’ve yet to gain citizenship, which raises a question: if even some who defend this country can't vote, why should those who want to destroy it?
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