“I am not recommending that everyone always vote. There may be principled reasons not to vote. Many people who vote maybe shouldn’t.” That’s Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Koch-funded Cato Institute, in a Cato blog post yesterday.
Interesting sentiment — that bit suggesting individuals shouldn’t vote — particularly as Cannon links to this op-ed proposing legally entrenched voter suppression in the form of a “citizen civics test.”
But it’s an outlook reflective of the Cato Institute’s Koch ties.
Charles and David Koch are staunch opponents of voting rights and they’ve even spearheaded voter disenfranchisement efforts, including by using policy institutes they fund to advocate the Voting Rights Act’s repeal. One of the think tanks, the Mercatus Center, wrote a 2010 paper warning of the “dangers” of high voter turnout, for example. And more recently, Koch-backed North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory successfully implemented a voter ID law in his state.
Charles and David Koch want as few voters to cast ballots as possible. Voter suppression and disenfranchisement makes their task of buying elections and influence to advance their selfish agenda all the more cost-effective.
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