Voters should be property owners

Sometimes I think we need to get back to voting the way the Founding Fathers intended: The franchise should be for white, male property owners only.
OK, I'll relent and agree that the right to vote should not just be for white men. Any man of any color who has property should be allowed to vote.
OK, I'll compromise even further and say that the right to vote should be extended to women of any color, too.
So voting should be for any property owner.
I'm not going to relent on that point. I think people who have someting to lose, such as property, will take voting more seriously. They will take a little more time to do some research and make a prudent decision on voting.
The way things are now, it is easy to manipulate voters.
Couple of days ago, while driving home from work, I was listening to a ballgame on the radio, and in between innings when they play the ads,  I heard some political announcements.
I noticed a trend this year: You question whether your opponents are truly members of the party. This is true mostly of Republican candidates. You accuse them of being former Democrats or Democrats posing as Republicans.
Or you run ads that refute what your opponents are saying about you, which is that you are really a Democrat.
It's a wonderful game, even though it tells the poor voter nothing.
I try to be a good citizen and an intelligent, informed voter. It is difficult. The foundational principle of my voter prep is to pay no attention to the TV and radio ads. I rarely watch TV so those ads are easy to avoid.
I am old-timey so I turn to newspapers first, including digital formats. I also look at some blogs.  I go to see candidates when they come to town.
It is a lot of work, and it is tempting to say the heck with it and just put up with whatever or whoever happens.
Then I think about the folks who died in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and all the other wars, and I feel guilty. They all died for the cause of good government, honest government, responsive government, limited government. For me to fail to vote would be a betrayal of their sacrifice.
Our county clerk was interviwed by the editor of the local newspaper this past week aout election. She made a couple of points that I found interesting and worth sharing.
For one thing, she said she believes the best way to vote is with a printed paper ballot and an ink pen like we did when I was a new voter. She explained that a compuer speaks a language the average person, the "everyman," cannot understand.
"If the people say this is a very close race and the state law says we're supposed to have a recount, we need to have a system that allows 'everyman' to do that," our clerk, Pam Grow, said.
She also talked about so-called "disenfranchisement," a common complaint in the cities, especially.
What is disenfranhisement?
According to some people, a simple voter ID card with a picture of the voter on it, is disenfranchisement.
Are you disenfranchised if you don't know about an election? Are you responsibile at all to inform yourself about upcoming election dates?
Are you disenfranchised if you have to go to a polling place? Should you demand the right to vote at home?
Are you disenfranchised if you have to vote on election day only? Should you demand the right to vote any time or place you want.
Grow has a radical idea (for nowadays) that voters need to take some initiative and get themselves to the polling place. She ays voters need to understand that voting takes some time. "The public has been conditioned to think the voting process is intantaneous, and for people that feel the process isn't, they claim they are being "disenfranchised."
"It is not supposed to be instantaneous. If you can wait on the sidewalk for a rock concert, you can wait for the election judges to set up and do their jobs properly," Grow said.
Regarding the clamor for early voting, Grow says, "If you want to see the Rolling Stones, you go the night they're playing at the stadium."
Her logic makes good sense to me.  It is entirely reasonable to expect voters to get themselves to the polling place in the correct precinct on the scheduled election day. It is entirely reasonable to expect them to show an identification card, preferable one with a photograph.
I would just add that you also need to be a real property owner. That was reasonable to the Founders. It seems reasonable to me today.