Over the course of the last month, thousands of voters throughout Texas received letters from the Texas Secretary of State’s office, telling them that the government had received information that they were dead, and that if they did not respond to the letter in thirty days, their voter registration would be cancelled. The letters follow concerns that the names of deceased people who have registered to vote would be used to commit election fraud as “zombie voters.”
Many have criticized the timing of the voter rolls purge as potentially disenfranchising voters. These concerns are related to some of the stringent Voter ID laws struck down in federal court last month as potentially discriminatory towards the elderly, the poor, and minorities.
Personally, I think that the letters did not go far enough in checking for dead registered voters. The idea of zombies voting sounds far more dangerous than a little bit of voter disenfranchisement. On one hand, we have zombies attacking us with not only conventional physical attacks, but also attacking with our own political system. On the other hand, we have a group of disenfranchised people that can’t even punish me by voting against candidates that I support. It’s obvious that the zombie voters are more dangerous, and we need to put more safeguards in place to stop them.
When a person registers to vote, they should have to go through a full physical examination to make sure that they are actually alive. Subtle signs such as pale skin, stiff joints, a slightly rotten smell, and a complete lack of a heartbeat indicate a dead voter trying to sneak his or her way past the system. Because their actions constitute an attempt to derail the entire system of representative democracy that America works on, any dead people attempting to vote should be sentenced to death, if the logistics work out.
Furthermore, when a person enters a voting booth, they should have to take a blood pressure test on a machine similar to those found in drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens, but attached to an electronic voting machine. If their blood pressure is found to be consistent with a living human’s, the machine will allow them to vote.
Now, I’m flexible about this. I understand that these electoral physicians and blood pressure machines would cost the voters quite a bit of money, something that simply is not ethical to do in the current economic climate. I fully appreciate these concerns, so I have another solution: disenfranchising more voters.
It would be much more cost effective to choose a hundred random people around the country, make absolutely certain that they are alive, and have only these people vote in the election. This way, no zombies vote, taxpayers will not have a heavier burden, and all of the disenfranchised people who would vote against this proposal would have no political power to stop it. Everybody wins, but the most important thing is that absolutely no dead people vote.
After all, dead voters would throw our entire political system into turmoil. Imagine the effects that zombie voters would have on Social Security or disability insurance alone. Just think of the difference between today’s electorate and an undead electorate. On one side, you have a shambling crowd filled mainly with mindless, under-informed voters milling to the polls without much individual thought beyond basic political affiliation, and on the other side, you have zombies. The contrast is obvious.
So this November, do your part for America. Get out the vote, and nail your local cemetery’s coffins shut tight. It’s your civic duty.
Note: I claim all rights to the inevitable future television show, “Zombie Nation,” a fast-paced political drama written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the ethical issues faced by politicians in a country run by dead people.
