"Make Voting Easier. Weekend Elections Would Be a Start"

Norm Ornstein offers this Roll Call commentary (paid subscription required). A snippet, for those who have been following the Carter-Baker Commission controversy:

Moving Election Day to the weekend is no panacea. It ought to be done in conjunction with a series of other reforms, some of which have been suggested by election officials and others of which were included in the recommendations by the Carter-Baker Commission on election reform, co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker.

Their commission has been given a bum rap, heavily criticized for one of its recommendations — that we move to a required photo ID for voting. Carter-Baker had made this recommendation with a series of caveats. Under current federal law, there will be a requirement in a few years that a photo identification, the REAL ID, be used for homeland security purposes. If such a requirement is to exist anyhow, why not use it as well for voting? At the same time, the commission said that any photo ID requirement must provide the IDs free of charge to everyone who lacks them and make them readily accessible. The panel did not accept the noxious Georgia standard, which is a latter-day poll tax.

But leave the controversial ID requirement aside and the other recommendations are important and necessary. These include moving rapidly to update statewide voter registration lists, to make them interoperable across states, to make sure that polling places have enough machines with adequate paper trails for validation and recounts, and to have enough trained poll workers.

"Bilingual ballot up for congressional vote"

The Chicago Sun-Times offers this report on the latest of a series of House hearings on renewing the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

California, Ohio Election Reform Initiatives Go Down to Defeat

AP has this wrap-up. This AP report credits the Judge Wapner ads for the defeat of Proposition 77 in California.

Voting Problems throughout country

Those who think we made enough improvements in election administration should think again. In California, Gov. Schwarzenegger had to cast a provisional ballot. A report from Virginia says that some voters are having trouble casting their votes for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. More problems in Ohio.
UPDATE: Apparently the California governor was allowed to cast a regular ballot. The story was not clear to me on this point. It is very troubling, however.

Brazile on Vermont Spending Case

Donna Brazile has written a commentary, "Vermont Case Offers Chance to Embrace Spending Limits," for Roll Call (paid subscription required). A snippet:

What's wrong with reasonable spending limits that leave plenty of cash to run great campaigns but also level the playing field and allow plenty of time for the real work of campaigns and governance?

There's nothing wrong with that, and a lot that's right. Opponents will raise the constitutional issues they always do on the topic, but if we truly want our democracy to remain a representative, responsive and honest one, we desperately need a conversation about our current campaign finance system. That's why seasoned politicians from across the partisan divide-- from former Sens. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) to Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) --- support campaign spending caps. It’s long past time to put this good idea on the table.

"Americans want voting practices to change, poll reveals"

Update: The poll is here.

-- 
Rick Hasen 
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School 
919 Albany Street 
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211 
(213)736-1466 - voice 
(213)380-3769 - fax 
rick.hasen@lls.edu 
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html 
http://electionlawblog.org