The fabric of our democracy

A lot of attention has been focused lately on the voter registration efforts of ACORN, a national community-based organization that has registered more than a million new voters this year, mostly within low-income and people of color neighborhoods.

Apparently, some (less than 1%) of those registration cards are problematic, meaning that they contain the names of fictional people or characters. In fact, ACORN's staff flagged nearly all of these problems and brought them to the attention of local election officials when they turned in the cards. They dealt with the bogus cards in this fashion because many states have laws requiring that an organization must turn in every single card it receives. As we have now seen, election officials and federal prosecutors in some states have seen fit to publicize these problems and level claims that ACORN is involved in assisting voter fraud.

Today's New York Times has an interesting editorial about this controversy. According to the Times,

Based on the information that has come to light so far, the charges appear to be wildly overblown — and intended to hobble Acorn’s efforts.

And the Times goes further, reminding us all of a far more important problem with our voter-registration system across the nation, namely:

...the fact that about one-third of eligible voters are not registered. The racial gaps are significant and particularly disturbing. According to a study by Project Vote, a voting-rights group, in 2006, 71 percent of eligible whites were registered, compared with 61 percent of blacks, 54 percent of Latinos and 49 percent of Asian-Americans.

Elections matter. It is critically important that our electoral system is fair and open so that all eligible voters can participate in our democracy. That certainly requires more careful attention to training and supervising the work of volunteers and paid canvassers by non-profit organizations. It also requires elimination of the unreasonable barriers that prevent many US citizens from voting.

A good place for Kentucky to start repairing the fabric of our democracy would be to restore the voting rights to former felons who have served their debt to society, and extend the hours that our polls are open on election day. Beyond that, we could  look closely at some steps that other states have already taken, including early voting, voting by mail, and same day voter registration.