Yesterday's New York Times:
...voting rolls, which are maintained by local election officials, are one of the weakest links in American democracy and problems are growing.
Some of these problems are no doubt the result of honest mistakes, but in far too many cases they appear to be driven by partisanship. While there are almost no examples in recent memory of serious fraud at the polls, Republicans have been pressing for sweeping voter purges in many states. They have also fought to make it harder to enroll new voters. Voting experts say there could be serious problems at the polls on Nov. 4....
For this election, voters need to be prepared to fight for their right to cast a ballot. They should try to confirm before Nov. 4 that they are on the rolls - something that in many states can be done on a secretary of state or board of elections Web site. If their state permits it, they should vote early. Any voter who finds that their name has disappeared from the rolls will then have time to challenge mistakes.
As a solution, the editorial calls for legislation passed by Congress that clearly defines how election offices can purge voter rolls, and how voters' registrations can be challenged. Naturally, any such law should favor the voter's right to cast a ballot over political parties' ability to scrub voting rolls of voters hostile to their ideology. Sounds good to me.
On one hand, this year's bald voter suppression efforts by the Republican party have at least brought some serious attention to the problem. Certainly Montanans are now aware of how the GOP tries to swing elections in some areas. So that's a good thing. Let's hope that, if the federal Congress doesn't pass voting reform, our state legislature will. (That's if, of course, the Republicans don't win a majority in either body. Then all bets are off.)
But this election might be marred by voter suppression, and it's an important election. Not only that, but efforts to crack down on voter suppression will probably be exploited by the Republican to challenge the legitimacy of an Obama presidency, as if somehow nonexistant voter fraud were an equivalent to the 2000 election debacle.
And, of course, there are now roadblocks across the country to voting, as if the process of voting wasn't difficult enough. Imagine the consternation of many first-time voters -- or intermittant voters -- who show up at the polls only to find their names scrubbed from the voting roll. And after the work we did to register voters, and to explain to them how, where, and when to vote, now we have an additional burden to get those voters to double-check their registration status, to ge them to vote early, and to inform them of their rights on Election Day.
How did it come to this, that we have to fight for our right to vote? |
