Voting

Here's a sampling of recent editorials on Republican efforts to skew elections by creating new hurdles to voting, a fundamental right in Missouri.  Newspapers from across the state have condemned similar efforts for years. 

Columbia Daily Tribune, 5/7: "Republicans in the General Assembly are in the process of passing wrongheaded legislation adding another burden to Missouri voters. When it arrives on his desk, Gov. Jay Nixon should veto it..."

Joplin Globe, 5/6: "In 2006, Missouri courts recognized that requiring voters to provide photo identification before they can vote violates the state’s constitution. The court’s message clear: A law like this would create barriers at the polls for some senior citizens, college students, poor people and some people with disabilities. Why? Because they make up the nearly 230,000 voters in our state who do not possess driver’s licenses, one of the easiest and most-often used forms of photo identification. The measure is back, and in our view it does more to disenfranchise voters than it does to protect them..."

The Voting Information Project -- a nonpartisan joint-effort by Google, the Pew Center on the States and local election officials -- has put together a cool online tool to help you find your polling place.  Check it out!

Don't know about you, but the stories about an expected 24% turnout for Tuesday's primary election are just depressing.  It's, like, unAmerican.  If you have loser friends and family members who are among the 76% of Missourians planning to skip the primary, you might passive-aggressively suggest that they visit this website to find their polling place.

I hope I'm wrong, but I imagine we're going to be seeing a lot more about this alleged vote fraud in St. Louis as evidence that Missouri needs a restrictive Photo ID law.  If and when Photo ID advocates decide to use this, they'll have to work hard to ignore the fact that photo identification wouldn't have prevented the type of alleged problems uncovered by the city Election Board.

Most of those votes -- 32 -- were cast in November by people who used vacant lots or abandoned buildings as their address...

Another handful voted twice in November, February or April elections, Leiendecker said. In all but one case, the suspects apparently voted in the city of St. Louis and also in St. Louis County, or they voted in St. Louis and also in Illinois.

The exception was a person who voted absentee at the Election Board headquarters on Saturday, before the April election, and then voted again on Election Day.

"We've done our job here. We're turning our information over to the federal prosecutor,'' Leiendecker said.

(As an aside: It doesn't appear that the government-issued photo IDs sought by some state officials, primarily Republicans, would have prevented the type of alleged voting irregularities uncovered by the city Election Board.)

 I have been touring Missouri for Obama during the last month and the “grassroots” are lively. I thought of that stout-hearted ditty from the play Les Miserables, that says change comes “when the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drum.”

I have never seen more hopeful hearts or a more robust drum beat for change. People know the future is at stake and that this is, indeed, the most important election in their lifetime. The ground operation for Obama is second to none. Polling data has no way of taking into account the vast Election Day effort that will occur in every town and hamlet across America. The superbly organized Obama Team has been working for the last two years for this moment and they are ready.

In another line from the show I mentioned above is the summons, “Who will be strong and stand with me; is there a world you long to see?” As we all know, this century did not get off to a good start; we have spent the first eight years moving in the wrong direction. Now we have a chance to start this century anew with the election of Barack Obama.

One woman I talked to said she had been knocking on doors for weeks. A number of people indicated that they would not put up a yard sign for Obama, because they did not want to irritate their neighbors. She said, “Then, they would smile and say, but my family plans to be there for Obama on November 4th.”

Election Day.

Be there.

No matter what.