Every influencer and every person running for elective office in 2022, from school board candidates to the US Senate, should be asked three key questions repeatedly by individuals, and their responses should be taken down and shared with others. Please copy these questions, share them with as many other people as you can, both in your state and elsewhere, and encourage them to pose these same questions so that every influencer and candidate for office in this country is on record with their responses.
Suggestion: Just ask the questions. Use the Background primarily for backup in case you are challenged.
First, on democracy. Background: In 2020 you may have been among the 81+ million official voters for Joe Biden that yielded him 306 electoral votes; or you may have been among the 74+ million official voters for Donald Trump that yielded him 232 electoral votes. Biden was declared the official winner of the 2020 election. Now some office holders who know better are denying the Biden win and duping the uninformed in order to hold on to power. You may or may not have liked the outcome, but since the very foundation of democracy, even worldwide, depends on voters accepting the official results of free and fair elections
Question 1: Do you accept the reality that President Biden won a free and fair election over former President Donald Trump in 2020? Yes. No.
Second, on abortion. Background: Super-conservative Kansas voters in an amazing primary turnout, recently rejected by nearly sixty per cent, a referendum that would have stripped the state’s constitution of abortion rights protections. Instead, Kansans wanted to allow women to control their own destinies, to prevent women dying from self-induced and botched abortions, to save women’s health and fertility, to enable women to pursue education and careers, and to shape their families in own way. In short they wanted women and girls to have the same freedoms as men and boys to make their choices about their own lives.
Question 2: Do you support women’s rights to choose how they live their lives, including abortion rights protections? Yes. No.
Third, on gun rights. Background: In Uvalde Texas, over 300 officers feared to confront a shooter who possessed an AR-15 rapid-fire gun, allowing that individual seventy-seven minutes to massacre nineteen innocent fourth-graders and two teachers, who either died instantly or bled to death on the floor of a classroom. While the founding fathers wanted citizens to be able to possess guns in order to protect themselves and their families, they would have been horrified to think their protection of gun rights would be interpreted to approve the possession by everyday citizens of rapid-fire weapons that would even terrorize police.
Question 3: Do you support banning AR-15s and other rapid-fire weapons for all persons except active military and authorized police officers? Yes. No.
Please help see that these three questions are answered repeatedly by every person running for elective office in 2022, and use their answers to help guide your votes in November 2022.
Richard C. Nelson