All Jasmine Hall wants to do is vote.

But the State of Michigan makes it nearly impossible for her.

I can hear Fannie Lou Hamer shouting from the grave.

The civil rights activist who was beaten and jailed while fighting for her right to vote might be surprised at what is happening now here — and across the country. But then again, she might not.

I could talk about the heinous shenanigans going on in Georgia, where Republican officials are throwing black folks off voter rolls and trying to toss absentee ballots.

But a week before Election Day, let’s focus on Michigan, on a final thought about Proposal 3, and on Jasmine Hall.

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She is a 30-year-old mother of two children, 6 and 9, and she has been a janitor at Metro Airport for five years.

She lives in northwest Detroit. Her kids attend school in Oak Park. Her babysitter is on the east side of Detroit. She works in Romulus.

And the State of Michigan will not allow her to have an absentee ballot.

“Usually on voting day, I try to make sure I can get to voting,” she said. "It’s difficult with the kids. It’s a 30-minute drive from the airport to my home. On voting day, schools are closed, so I have to take the kids to a babysitter on the east side. Then I drive from there to Romulus, and I have to be at work at 6 o’clock (a.m.)

"So I figure I could get an absentee ballot, but ... of course, I don’t qualify. So sometimes, I miss out on voting and that sucks because I want to make sure my vote counts every year."

Does that sound incredible? Of course it does. But this is what’s worse. You can get an absentee ballot for only six reasons in Michigan:

Be age 60 or older

Be unable to vote without assistance at the polls

Expect to be out of town on Election Day

In jail awaiting arraignment or trial

Unable to attend the polls because of religious reasons

Appointed to work as an election inspector in a precinct outside your precinct of residence

None of that applies to working parents who cannot physically be in two places at one time or voters without transportation, particularly when the Legislature draws districts so convoluted that you don’t vote near your home. (That’s covered in Proposal 2, which would end political gerrymandering. Vote yes for that, too).

None of those absentee ballot criteria help voters like Jasmine Hall, who drives her Toyota Scion to get to work by 5:30 a.m., gets off at 2:30, takes a required 30-minute shuttle to get to her car, then drives to Detroit's east side (on the parking lot that is I-94) to get her kids by 4 so she can take her son to his private tutor in Westland ("which I pay for," she says), then back to northwest Detroit, which takes another hour and a half.

They arrive to immediately do homework and have dinner. But without a sitter, she can either drag them to the polls, which is a 15-minute drive from her home, or get the kids, who have been up since before dawn, to bed.

“I drive two freeways just to get home. I grab the kids and depending on who’s able to watch them that day, they’re on the east side with my family. By the time I leave and get back to my area, it’s 5:30 or 6 o’clock. I start dinner, do homework and then it’s close to 8 o’clock."

Do not tell Jasmine Hall to drag her kids to the polls at that time when they have school the next day.

“All I want is an absentee ballot so I don’t miss voting,” she said.

And she has tried.

“The last time I tried to vote, my car broke down and I was standing on the side of the road for an hour, and I couldn’t make it back in time to vote,” she said.

Detroit's Director of Elections Daniel Baxter said that, while he sympathizes with all voters, he must follow the law.

"Upon registering you have a right to vote," he said. "You can either vote at the precinct on Election Day or meet one of the six standards established by Michigan law. Those individuals who don't meet that criteria to vote by absentee are bound to go to the polls on Election Day. As an administrator of the process, I have to uphold the law regardless of an individual's personal situation."

If you don’t want to read all of Proposal 3, it would literally make it easier and fairer to vote by: protecting a secret ballot; ensuring that military service members can obtain ballots; allowing straight-party voting; registering all voters no matter what; allowing citizens to register anytime; allowing voters to get absentee ballots for any reason, and requiring audits of election results.

Proposal 3 also would let voters register on or before the 15th day before an election and register, with proof of residency, on Election Day.

Jasmine Hall says the current system is terrible.

“I feel like it’s set up to keep people from voting,” she said. "You have a lot of people out here who don’t even have rides to polls. I have co-workers who catch the bus to come to work. They have to take three buses to get home. It's not set up for our vote to count.”

That, in itself, is a reason to vote for Proposal 3.

Contact Rochelle Riley: rriley99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley. Get information about her book "The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery" on amazon.com.