Governor Katie Brown of Oregon Gives Dems Voting Reform They Can Believe in

     The GOP is surely not happy about this one. Voter reform that actually serves to increase rather than decrease voter turnout. Republicans are in principle opposed to such a thing. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/why-gop-congress-wont-fix-voting-rights.html

      Voter 'reform' has mostly been going the GOP's way in recent years with their buddies on the Supreme Court-the Roberts Court-backing up all those voter restricting laws-and even weakening the Voting Rights Act. 

     "Democrats have felt no end of frustration over the spread of voter ID laws, not only because they disenfranchise huge numbers of people in the name of solving an essentially imaginary problem (in-person voter impersonation), but also because they seem almost impossible to stop. The Supreme Court has approved ID laws multiple times, even ones that are nakedly partisan, and voter ID laws are now in effect in 31 states. Republicans have also tried other ways to make registration and voting as difficult as possible, including restricting early voting. But other than mounting traditional registration and education drives and challenging new laws in court, Democrats haven’t come up with too many ways to fight back."

     "But Oregon could be pointing the way to a new, more offensive effort on Democrats’ part. Instead of just trying to counter Republican voting restrictions, they could find new ways to open up the voting system and get more people to the polls. This law doesn’t completely solve the problem of the unregistered (it only reaches people who have gone to get driver’s licenses or other ID from the DMV), but it goes a long way in that direction."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/03/17/could-oregons-voting-law-signal-a-democratic-push-to-open-up-elections/

     Yep the GOP is really going to hate the idea that anyone that gets a license or ID from the DMV gets their license-which means, of course, it's a great idea. 

    Paul Waldman wonders if this could be the start of a larger trend for Demsto do more than just react to GOP obstruction. It can-if we get more Democrats elected. It goes back to what I always say: the problem is not that the Democrats in office aren't liberal enough but that there aren't enough Democrats in office. 

     As he says, the philosophy behind this move is 180 degrees from the GOP ID laws that try to make it as hard as possible to vote. 

     "And critically, the Oregon law begins from the premise that everyone should be part of the electorate, and if they aren’t, then policy ought to be changed. Under the new law, you can opt out of registration if you want, but the default is that you’ll be registered. The implicit assumption behind Republican restrictions is that voting isn’t a right but a privilege, one you have to earn by jumping through a series of hoops."

     Still, Waldman begins to lose me a bit:

     "Republicans claim — sometimes even without giggling — that their only concern is the integrity of the ballot and they never even consider the possibility that ID requirements will benefit their partisan interests. So they ought to be taken at their word. If we put enough effort into it, there’s no reason we couldn’t have a system that was secure and made fraud extremely difficult, but also made voting the default option. Ten states use same-day registration, which makes voting much easier, and they haven’t been overwhelmed by fraud. We ought to be able to come up with more ideas for making voting easier without sacrificing security."

     Why should we take them at their word? Please, in my years of watching politics, one of the most reliable rules of thumb is to never take GOPers at their word. Assuming the worst from them will rarely leave you disappointed. He himself admits that the fraud is basically imaginary so why dignify it? 

    Then again, why did he dignify the demand for more info about Hillary's emails? Mostly because he dignifies a lot of things way too much. 

     UPDATE: Conservatives just like low voter turnout. Listen to Bibi:

  

     "Increasingly worried that he could lose Tuesday’s elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel lashed out at the country’s Arab voters, expressing alarm that a large turnout by them could determine the outcome. Opponents accused him of baldfaced racism."

     "Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks, in a video posted on social media, were seen by critics as the most strident in a series of assertions he has made in recent days to rally right-wing supporters to his argument that he is the only Israeli leader who will save the country from its enemies."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/03/17/happy-hour-roundup-563/