Reading Doug Pugh’s columns has become an enjoyable habit each Saturday. I look forward to his common sense, insightful thoughts. But recently, he really hit the nail on the head with his column addressing ordinary fact gathering to reach an ordinary, common sense conclusion regarding the value and legitimacy of our votes during the recent presidential election.

He calls the actions of our local Congressman, Jack Bergman, to invalidate our election votes as bad judgement…a perverted predication (claim) and a lack of awareness of the facts. Facts that have been supported by numerous court cases and the conclusions of the Michigan, Republican-dominated, Senate Oversight Committee that found “no evidence of widespread or systemic fraud in the 2020 election. Concluding that “citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast.”

But, our own Congressman and many of his fellow party supporters continue to attempt to take our votes away from us and support The Big Lie. We see numerous pieces of legislation and ballot initiatives being proposed throughout various states that would place “Jim Crow era” restrictions on who can vote and when. We even have candidates for various state offices that regulate elections (e.g. Secretary of State) running solely on their platform that the 2020 election was rigged and threatening that the “ammo box” will replace the “ballot box” to choose future winners of elections.

Is this the direction for our country to choose its leaders? I think not and encourage voters to sort fact from fiction as future elections are before us.

DON NEWPORT,

Greenbush