It looks like Colorado is about to implement universal mail-in voting. You’ll still be able to vote early in person or in person on election day, but all voters will receive a mail-in ballot. They are also introducing same-day registration.
In 2012, Colorado trailed only Minnesota and Wisconsin in voter turnout. These reforms could easily boost Colorado into first place in 2016.
My questions for the media are these: is this really the flip side of passing laws to make it more difficult to vote that have the intention of lowering turnout? Are the Democrats expanding the electorate for partisan purposes in the exact same way that Republicans are limiting it for partisan advantage? And, even if you feel impelled to answer those questions in the affirmative, do both endeavors have the same legitimacy? Is helping people vote the moral equivalent of taking steps to prevent people from voting?
I’d point out, additionally, that at least one study of election day registration showed that it increased turnout by seven percent, while modestly increasing the representation of the lower income/education spectrum of the electorate, but that it did not have any perceptible impact on the partisan breakout of the electorate. In other words, more people vote, but the way they vote is representative of the electorate as a whole.
So, even though it is generally believed that higher turnout will benefit Democrats, it isn’t necessarily true. With election day registration, at least, it doesn’t seem to make a difference. What will make a difference in the partisan makeup of the electorate are laws specifically designed to disenfranchise key Democratic constituencies, which is precisely what Voter Photo ID laws do. Because women often abandon their maiden names, they are more likely to have ID that doesn’t match their registration. Because minorities are more likely to be urban and less likely to own a car, they are less likely to own any photo ID at all. Because college students are often away from home and they move a lot, they are likely to have mismatched identification and registration. And the elderly often give up driving and no longer need a driver’s license. Among these groups, only the elderly trend towards the Republicans, but those on fixed incomes tend toward the Democrats.
When Democrats do voter registration in minority neighborhoods, they are trying to give themselves a partisan advantage, but when they create election-day registration they should expect none.
So, I ask again, are the Republican and Democratic attitudes towards voting really morally equivalent?
Finally, some sanity from a state legislature in this country. Congratulations, CO. I wouldn’t mind moving to Colorado. When I can work from home full-time, it’s definitely on my top 5 list.
Colorado is on a fucking roll, baby:
http://coloradosenate.org/home/press/protecting-rape-survivors-from-having-to-co-parent-with-their-r
apist
“My questions for the media are these: is this really the flip side of passing laws to make it more difficult to vote that have the intention of lowering turnout? Are the Democrats expanding the electorate for partisan purposes in the exact same way that Republicans are limiting it for partisan advantage?”
Certainly a motivating factor, but the underlying issue is that expanding voting rights is morally right, whomever it may benefit.
That’s really the bottom line. It may well be that Democrats favor democracy and Republicans oppose it but it’s still a constitutional issue, not a partisan one.
yes, the focus should be on what is moral in a democracy. What do European democracies do, for example.
Making it easier for EVERYONE to vote is not the moral equivalent of making voting more difficult for certain demographic groups. Duh.
Repub strategy is to suppress voting by Dem demographics, Dem “strategy” doesn’t do a thing to theirs—in fact, it makes it easier for Repub groups to vote as well.
This isn’t that hard a concept. That the corporate press affects not to understand it, or parrots Repub nonsense, is just another sign of its abject corruption and uselessness. That these arguments need to be made in a 200 year old “democracy” shows the absolute ongoing degeneracy of this failing country.
So the moral equivalency argument is that morality is tainted by self-interested motive. Is that proposition true generally?
Would Republican actions to limit the vote be more moral if they were untainted by the self-interest of the GOP in winning elections?
It seems pretty bogus all around to me.
The important ethical issue in a representative electoral democracy is everyone having the unimpeded opportunity to vote.
If you really want to dig in morality and elections, try looking at candidate choices and exactly which interests are involved in them. Interestingly, it not necessarily the interest of the party in winning that dictates candidate choices. Or the availability of primary alternatives.
Wanna throw a really big monkey wrench in the GOper plans to limit the vote?
Restructure the electoral college so each election year the electoral collage is apportioned by the actual numbers of voters from the states in the last Presidential election cycle, not the full population.
Watch them fall all over each other trying to boost turnout for their individual states.
We have all mail-in voting in Oregon. No problem.
Certainly the Democrats are motivated to expand the franchise out of self-interest. They wouldn’t put in the effort if the new voters weren’t going to vote for them.
But at the end of the day, voting is a right that all who are citizens of the right age should enjoy. Giving more people access to that right is the morally just thing to do, even if the motivation underlying the effort is self-interest.
Washington and Oregon have both had mail-in balloting for a while (Oregon was first); in both states, it has increased turnout quite a bit. Media don’t like it because in a close race it’s sometimes days before the result is clear, and some traditionalists don’t like it because, tradition. But in both states it’s been wildly popular, and alarmist concerns (from left and right) about it making vote fraud easier do not seem to have been borne out by experience.
What pisses me off about vote-by-mail (note Kos has been pushing it for years) is that vote-in-person was abolished. I want that experience! I’m a political junkie! As long as you can do both, I can support it but if you FORCE vote by mail then I am against it.
Also I wish election day were a national holiday and people were fined if they didn’t vote like in Australia.
All the evidence I’ve seen shows that vote-by-mail does nothing to increase voter turnout. I still support it, but unless you have studies to the contrary, it really doesn’t increase it.
Apologies to all concerned, but I don’t understand the underlying question at all.
The drop in Republican registration can be directly tied to the drop in multi-issue voters in the Republican party. Lord knows, I’ve been wrong a lot over the past 5 years, but I double dog dare ANYONE to claim that the Republican Party as a whole is not composed of primarily single issue voters: Abortion, Gay rights, Guns, Racism. There are multi-issue voters that claim to be Republican, but not many. The majority of multi-issue Republicans have become Independents … leading to the growing conservatism of the Independents in this country.
Declared Democrats, on the other hand, are almost always multi-issue voters. That could easily change with the defeat of the background checks bill (I’ve about decided that my votes from here on out will be based solely on gun control), and there are many for whom the lure of a President of Color trumps pretty much anything else (my wife for one), but these are recent trends (5 years of less).
Small turnout favors the single issue voters. Period.
Large turnout favors the multi-issue voters. Period.
So what is the moral equivalence here? Conservatives want to restrict the vote to single issue voters. Non-Conservatives wish to expand multi-issue voters while not denying single issue voters ANYTHING.
No equivalence.
(Actual) Journalism 101.
If increasing turnout dooms Repubs, what does that say about their policies?
Why should the goals of democratic participation be trumped to aid a particular political party?
If a party consistently opposes policies which clearly and uniformly increase voter participation, can that party be said to “support” a universal franchise regime, whatever its claims may be?
If Repubs now argue that Dem strategy is the “same” because it helps Dems win, aren’t they conceding that their “fraudulent voting!” arguments were BS all along, mere strategic makeweights to aid their election prospects?