Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 25, 1993 TAG: 9303250590
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SENATE DEBATE
SUPERFICIALLY, Senate debate last week over a national "motor voter" bill focused on weighty issues. Are safeguards against election fraud adequate? Is it right to impose more unreimbursed costs on the states?But if you somehow got the impression that principles more than politics were behind the arguments, think again. The proof is in the amending.
In addition to requiring states to provide voter registration by mail and when applying for a driver's license, the senators of one party wanted to provide for registration at welfare and unemployment offices.
No way, said senators of the other party - but, these senators said, it sure would be nice to provide voter-registration services at military-recruitment stations.
Now, it is a fact of political life in the United States that lower-income voters tend to support Democrats more than do upper-income voters. We are therefore not shocked, truly not shocked, that it was the Democrats who wanted to include voter registration at welfare and unemployment offices.
It is another fact of political life in the United States that military personnel tend to support Republicans more than do non-military voters. We are therefore not shocked, truly not shocked, that it was the Republicans who wanted to include recruiting stations.
Flexing the muscle of threatened filibuster, the GOP minority prevailed. The provision requiring states to provide voter-registration services at unemployment and welfare offices was amended out of the bill. A provision for registration at military recruiters' stations was amended into it.
The Democrats, though, came out smelling better. Providing voter registration at social-service offices and doing so at military-recruiting offices are, after all, not mutually exclusive. The Democrats were willing to do both. The Republicans were not, and most opposed the bill anyway. Not for them this business of making it easier for people to exercise the franchise.
In criticizing the bill for its costs to the states, opponents may have had a point. In genuinely "reinvented" government, the measure perhaps would entail less administrative expense, particularly for states - Virginia, alas, is not foremost among them - that already have user-friendly voter registration.
But in a genuinely reinvented government, registration procedures wouldn't be an issue. The states already would have made registration as easy as possible, perhaps eliminated it altogether. This would have been done on the principle that citizen convenience is more important than bureaucratic blockade-building.