BTW, neither form of ID (here in IL anyway) needs to have a picture. You can use a piece of mail and a credit card among other choices. Most people use a Driver's License and a credit card, but there are about ten other forms that are acceptable. For example, your topoor person can show their Medicaid card and their Social Security card.

I started a fuss that resulted in redrawn precincts, but in 2006, my parents went to the polling place on their voter ID cards, two blocks from their house, and were told they had to vote at a place on the opposite side of the township, about 20 minutes. My father: "At the price of gas today, that amounts to a poll tax. That's illegal!"

I don't know what kind of obstacles they'll face this year. My mother's been frail lately. I, and they, surely do wish they could vote by mail.

Early voting has been bothering me throughout this election cycle, even though it may happen to favor Obama this time around. It enables even more voting without information. It degrades the significance of voting as a democratic rite and right. The mail-in variation destroys the hard-won principle of the secret ballot, grossly encouraging the age-old evils of vote-buying and intimidation.

I can't see what good comes of degrading the fundamental ritual of democracy down to the level of buying a big mac. We do not respect what comes easy or cheap. I think we need to quit marketing and concentrate on making sure the right to vote is a reality for everybody -- that's the failure point in our system. It matters that everybody can vote. It matters just as much that voting remain something worth making an effort for.

Fortunately, my solution is something Jacobs would probably hysterically oppose: making election day a national holiday, say the last Wednesday in October or something. The real problem with voting now is that workers at the bottom of the pyramid are pressured not to take the time to vote. A holiday, with mandatory closing of all but essential businesses, would fix that while it restores the sacred trust that the right and privilege of voting was always supposed to be.

Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense." --Former Nixon counsel John Dean

What a relief! Thinking I agreed with Jeff Jacoby was making me quite nervous.

If the election is stolen you have proved a point.

If Obama is inaugurated you will be a happy convert.

Where's the down side?

Bob

Bob Higgins Worldwide Sawdust http://worldwide-sawdust.com/blog

I am sympathetic to your point of view, but what evidence do you have for your claim that the overwhelming majority of Americans who do not vote refrain from going to the polls for this particular reason?

Neither the snippet nor BooMan's remarks makes it clear that the writer is referring to absentee and mail-in voters. Therefore, BooMan risked some people misconstruing the point by not making it clear.

In an age of "have-it-your-way" convenience, it may seem unreasonable to expect voters to wait until November to help choose a president, senator, or city councilor. Why not encourage them to vote in October or September or even August if they've made up their minds?

Here's why: Because voters who cast early ballots do so without benefit of all the information, analysis, and discussion that bloom in such profusion during the last weeks of an election campaign - the debates, the endorsements, the voter guides, the candidates' speeches, the heightened media attention.

What is significant about Election Day isn't so much the date itself; it's the focus that date provides for the process of democratic decision-making. No one thinks jurors should be allowed to render a verdict before hearing from the final witnesses and closing arguments. Theater critics don't skip the play's final act in order to write their review. For the same reason, Americans should vote on the first Tuesday in November, not whenever they're ready to "move on."

What does "Election Day" mean? It used to be the pinnacle of our civic religion, the gravely eloquent day when voting in America took place. Now it's just the day when voting comes to an end. Many changes are for the better, but this isn't one of them.

Some of the real reasons Republicans are afraid of early and absentee voting is revealed in the first comment -- absentee voting sidesteps several Republican strategies to suppress or steal the vote:

 Here are reasons to favor early voting:

1. Computerized election fraud. Electronic voting machines are not secure. The results can easily be skewed by their manufacturers or by outside hackers: a couple percent in this county, a couple percent in that county, who can tell? With no audit trail, electronic voting is an invitation to undetectable election fraud on a mass scale. Voting early, on paper, doesn't ensure that your vote will be counted, but at least it produces a paper record that can be checked in the event that statistical red flags are found (as has happened in many elections in the past four years).

2. Immunity to "October surprises". With the advent of short-attention-span mass media, polls swing wildly as one sensationalized attack ad follows another. Having the election on a single day encourages politicians to dump a salvo of false attack ads in the last week of the election: stirring up rancor among the public before the press has time to debunk the lies. Voting early gives people time to watch fact get sorted out from falsehood, and to consider their vote thoughtfully

 

A Progressive Christian perspective on I/P at Beyond Bethlehem