Universal, federal election registration now

John Adams, by David McCullough

 John Adams, founding father and second President of the United States, he who has been almost uniformly lionized as a result of David McCullough’s John Adams and the derived HBO miniseries, would hate this idea.

The myth of America is government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The only problem with Mr. Lincoln’s formulation is that it has never been so.

I submit that now is the time to at least approach that ideal by removing the last impediment to universal suffrage – the mishmash of inconsistent and discriminatory state voter registration rules and practices.

In my reading of history, the cry of states’ rights has always been the cry of those seeking to hold back the tide of progress. Opponents of universal suffrage (the defenders of elite ”qualifications,” poll taxes, and other measures designed to maintain control of the levers of power) can be counted on to say that the benefits of 50 different states’ rules are part of some treasured “laboratory of democracy.”

Voter registration needs to be uniform across state boundaries. Particularly for federal elections, there is no justification for denying the right to vote based on anyone’s state of residence.

The Republicans, who have used the phantom of voter fraud as a cudgel with which to bash those who want to expand the franchise, ought to seize on this proposal because it is one that will eliminate practically all possibility of fraud.

A single, national, automatic registration would reduce the confusion and anger that results from eccentric and erroneous purges of the voter rolls.

The New York Times reports that “independent experts say easier registration and voting methods would ensure that huge crowds like those on Tuesday [Nov. 4, 2008] turn out without being discouraged by the long delays experienced in many states.”

Universal voter registration “would mean that all eligible voters are automatically registered,” said Rosemary E. Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, which oversees voting.

“A system of automatic registration, in which the government bears more of the responsibility for assembling accurate and secure lists of eligible voters, is a necessary reform,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who is working on legislation intended to overhaul how eligible voters register, said Thursday. “All eligible Americans should be able to cast their ballot without barriers, and the registration problems we saw on Tuesday and during the weeks that preceded Election Day make clear that the system needs improvement.”

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But how states maintain and verify their lists has become a serious problem and led to many lawsuits around the country. Before the election, Colorado, Louisiana and Michigan were found to have wrongly removed thousands of voters from their rolls.

The Election Protection Hotline received more than 20,000 reports from states like California, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania of voters who showed up at the polls to find they were not on the rolls. The only option for them was to cast a provisional ballot, which is not recorded if poll workers cannot find a matching voter-registration record……………………………….

Why not make registration automatic, verifiable, and universal…now?