Hillary Backs Age 18 Universal Voter Registration

Hillary Clinton
with former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
observing the North Korean border

During a speech today, Hillary Clinton advocated for nationwide universal voter registration for all citizens who reach age 18. The comments, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, had two purposes. One of them was to increase the number of eligible voters, a seemingly laudable goal. Hillary's other goal was to criticize Republican presidential candidates whose actions have effectively trimmed voter rosters in their respective states. The GOP plan is predicated on uncomplicated electoral math in which racial minorities and young voters are systematically blocked from their voting franchise. Often, the right-wing uses the absurd them of "voter fraud" to achieve its cynical purpose.

The GOP should be -- but isn't -- ashamed of itself for perpetrating this offense. If the Republican programs were so popular, the party of the elephants would not have to resort to discouraging or suppressing voters from expressing their opinion. Once upon a time, the GOP could count on white male voters to carry national elections. (This was a premise of the 2012 Romney campaign.) Well, we know how that one worked out, although the Democratic Party had to fight Republican voter suppression efforts in states such as Pennsylvania.

The notion of universal voter registration makes sense. The "state's rights" crowd is almost certain to fight any such proposal. They want to take "their" country back. So do 18-year-old voters.

Report: 59 Philadelphia Voting Wards Showed Absolutely No Votes for Mitt Romney

The picture tells the story.
(Photo from Fox News)

In a fitting epitaph to the recent presidential election, a report in philly.com, the online editon of the Philadelphia Inquirer, notes that Mitt Romney was unanimously rejected in certain Philadelphia voting wards. We're talking zero votes for the man from Massachusetts. Nada. Absolutely nothing. Zip.

You could characterize this as the Obama campaign pitching a shutout, or Romney's campaign repeatedly swinging and missing. However, when the vote count is 19,605 to zero, well, what else can one say? We can reasonably suppose the Romney-Ryan message died a hard death in the predominantly African-American, predominantly 47 percenter wards cited in the story.

Unsurprisingly, the political Dracula known as "voter fraud" stuck its hand out from the political grave. According to the story,

Steve Miskin, a spokesman for Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, brought up his party's voter-identification initiative - which was held off for this election - and said "We believe we need to continue ensuring the integrity of the ballot."

Some people just don't get it.

The Fiction of the GOP's Voter Fraud Claims

Today's Miami Herald includes a report on US Senator Bill Nelson's request for a Federal inquiry into new voting laws recently enacted in various states. The purpose of the new laws, Nelson suspects, is to muzzle likely Democratic Party voters. In most cases, Republican governors or GOP-controlled legislatures have put new statutes on the books which mandate heightened identification requirements for voter registration.

The GOP stance on this issue is that they're simply trying to prevent "massive" voter fraud and to thwart illegal immigrants from casting ballots in American elections. I wondered where these enormous numbers of fake voters could be found. I've voted, with the exception of one year, annually for more than three decades. I've voted in squalid inner cities and prosperous suburbs. I grew up in a small, very Republican town. I was too young to vote at that time, but my parents did vote and took the privilege seriously. They got accustomed to the election officials wearing GOP badges inside the polling area. No one ever complained or called the ACLU.

In all of these venues, the concept of waves of people appearing en masse at a polling station was simply a ridiculous notion. Those experiences led me to conclude that Republican efforts to inhibit the right to vote to as many people as possible is simply shameful. The action casts doubt on the validity of the Republican claim (especially the Tea Party faction's assertion) that they represent the majority of Americans. If that claim were true, the Republicans would want to register as many people as possible, so as to add the weight of numbers to their argument.

The Miami Herald article notes that investigations of voter fraud conducted over the years have conclusively shown the GOP assertions to be without merit. Among the probes was a federal investigation during the George W. Bush regime. (That investigation was especially ironic, given GOP's high-stakes voter fraud in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.) Yet, the Republican Party's baseless allegations continue, with plenty of people buying into them.

Voting is fundamentally connected to the rights of free speech and assembly. In the iterations of Occupy (fill in the blank), municipalities have squirmed over enabling these constitutionally guaranteed rights. What the Occupy phenomenon has brought to light is that those rights need to be reasserted, regardless of political perspective.