It’s not just the Voter ID law. Now the Corbett administration is deciding not to move forward with allowing people to register to vote online, or request an absentee ballot online.
Chuck Pascal raised some good points on Twitter that made me a little wary of the absentee ballot change, but online voter registration seems like a knock-down obvious move. 10 states do it with no obvious security problems. How hard could it be to have that ready in three months? Why isn’t it ready to go already? This would be happening if people actually wanted it to happen.
That’s the most important point in the voting wars. All the micro policy disagreements are a front for the real disagreement, which is that Republicans think it’s generally too easy for people to vote in America, and (some) Democrats think we should be continually trying make it more convenient. The reason for the disagreement is obvious – if we had 100% turnout, Obama’s lead would increase by 9 points. Conservative movement politics would be finished in a full turnout world.
Listening to some of the rhetoric, I get the impression from right-wing Republicans that voting is a privilege, and must be reserved only for the privileged, right-thinking, few. Pun intended. You read a lot of this nonsense on conservative blogs.
You said it Julieann!