The United States prides itself on being a democratic society. Yet even in the 2008 election, which had the highest percentage turnout in decades, more than one-third of the country’s 18-and-over population did not vote.
Assembly Bill 1436, which would allow California voter registration on Election Day, probably would not make a huge dent in that statistic. Nonetheless, it is good for voters to have that flexibility and extra time, and we urge politicians in Sacramento to make the bill law. The bill, which already passed in the Assembly and has no organizational opposition, would allow conditional voter registration as late as Election Day with provisional voting at voting offices.
California is not alone in this endeavor. There has been a nationwide surge in laws pertaining to voting. Ten states allow some form of voter registration on Election Day. Just this past November, Maine voters restored Election Day voter registration after its state Legislature banned it earlier that year.
Meanwhile, many other states have passed laws that make it more difficult for citizens to vote. For instance, eight states require official photo identification. We are glad California’s voting law could become more lenient rather than stricter.
The existing law in California requires voters to register at least 15 days prior to the election. That requirement is unnecessary and outdated. Surely, it is preferable to plan ahead of time and not wait to register on the last day, but ensuring that every person eligible to vote has an easy opportunity to register is critical.
Even though, if passed, the bill would not go into effect until after the November election — and therefore not impact Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 tax initiative — it would still undoubtedly benefit college students. College kids move away from home and may not know their address until it is too late. Perhaps they just turned 18 and had yet to register. Or maybe in the process of school and clubs and being on their own for the first time, it slipped their mind. This law helps protect the constitutional right to vote.
If the bill is passed, students and all eligible Californians who are unregistered should take advantage of the law by registering. And, of course, voting too.
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This state, along with a couple other big liberal states like New York, is already an orgy of fraud, it’s hard to see how it could get any worse–but this would help. Earlier this year the New York Post sent a reporter out on the streets of NYC and easily purchased green cards, driver’s licenses, and social security cards. Shortly after 9/11 the “Inside Edition” program did the same thing in LA. No one at the state or federal level does anything about the fake ID industry, in effect they encourage it. How can you verify someone is who they say they are if you can’t rely on their ID documents in the first place?
This law will be the nail in the coffin for any hope of restoring California to responsible management. Right now there are locales in this state where the local law is actually afraid to enforce anything against fake ID because the local economy depends on it–and I”m not talking about the fairy tales of “they’re just coming for jobs”, look up the unemployment for the Central Valley counties, they’re up around 20% (much worse if they actually counted everybody who is here). In places like Fresno and Modesto, illegals gleefully collect benefits under multiple IDs and local law must look the other way because (1) the economy is starved for $ and (2) if they started enforcing anything at all there would be a violent response, the areas are so thick with gangs. Go look at Victor Davis Hansen’s column “Road Warrior” at National Review Online for a taste of what kind of a terroristic environment citizens of the valley are forced to endure. Or just look at the Fresno or Modesto Bee sites, even keeping in mind that these are run by a notoriously dishonest media corp called McClatchy that is in effect a lobby for illegal immigration.
Maybe we should also allow high school students to wait until the day Cal classes start to apply for admission? And students should have until the last minute of the day of finals to drop classes?
Not a “vote for democracy” but a vote for potential fraud. The Dems smell that they are in serious trouble this November, and are pulling out all the stops to get Obama and his disaster of an administration re-elected, by hook or by crook.
Obama’s record of failure:
He Cut 741 billion from Medicare
23 million unemployed
The middle class has lost 40% of its net worth under Obama
Black poverty at record highs
Black youth unemployment over 50%
Hispanic unemployment at 11%
Food prices up 15% under Obama
Gas prices doubled under Obama
42 months of unemployment above 8%
Obama has the worst job creation record since 1945 (BLS)
Obama recovery the worst in 75 years
Median household income $4,300 declines under Obama
Average family health insurance up $1,500 under Obama
The truth is, Obama has failed Americans.
Cool looking ain’t enough. Vote him and his Grifter wife out in Nov.
Maybe you should have read the article and seen that the law would only enter into effect after this next election. Also, the best way to mitigate the effects of fraud would be to get more Americans to vote. If you could increase turnout from 50% to 80%, any few illegitimate votes would be less likely to make a difference.
This is NOT about getting “more American to vote”. It’s about creating chaos and confusion at the polls on election day as a cover for fraud.
If somebody hasn’t bothered until the last minute to decide whether he or she wants to vote, that same person probably hasn’t bothered to do any research on the candidates or issues either. We don’t need more ignorant and uninformed people showing up to vote at the last minute.
Your argument makes no sense because the new law cannot put any restrictions on the number of illegitimate votes (which by definition are outside the law). If you could increase turnout from 50% to 80% through whatever means (advertising, rallies, bribes) then illegal voters would be just as likely to succumb to the excitement and cast their votes, in direct proportion to the number of legal votes. This year, for example, millions of illegal aliens will be tempted to vote (illegally) for Obama because he is promising pseudo amnesty for most young illegal aliens and he’s giving them work vouchers, so many “dreamers” may be very tempted to make sure Obama gets re-elected to continue his generous handouts.
I’m amused by the contradicting positions of conservatives on gun control and voting rights. When it comes to guns, any regulations are bad because “outlaws don’t follow regulations anyway”. Yet when it comes to voting, you say more red tape will discourage fraud?
Votes are more dangerous than guns.
I’m not sure what you mean by contradiction. Conservatives want all legal citizens to have the right to own guns, just as all citizens should have the right to vote. Illegal aliens should not have either right, but unfortunately they often do (vote fraudulently in order to qualify for I-9 employment verification). If you are referring to the California 10-day waiting period for gun purchases, I have no problem with that since criminal background screening and mental illness screening should be required for both gun ownership and voting. You don’t see conservatives pushing for same-day gun purchases in order to game elections, but liberals are pushing for same-day voting rights in order to overwhelm local election boards so that they do not have enough time to remove fraudulent votes, most of which usually go for Democrats or pork-laden populist causes. A better analogy would be to ask if conservatives are against the same-day exercise of First Amendment rights, and I have not heard of such opposition from conservatives.
The Republicans don’t have a problem because illegal immigrants vote against them. They have a problem because legal, non-white voters vote massively against them. Republicans are losing a lot of votes from conservative minority voters, and conservative immigrants voters, just because they don’t clean up the bigots from their party (not that the Democrats are very clean either on that respect).
Yes the dead and illegals usually wait until the last minute to register.