Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503300012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Gov. George Allen's main quarrel is that the law's an unfunded mandate on the state, and that registration is a states-rights issue in which the feds ought not to meddle. Allen and other state officials continue to be discomforted by the law's insistence that states allow residents to register to vote by mail - a provision that critics charge is an invitation to voter fraud.
Perhaps the courts will agree. Perhaps the law could stand revisions. Unfortunately, the states' challenge seems sure to encourage those in Congress who'd like to repeal the whole kit and caboodle of more user-friendly registration procedures.
Provisions that allow citizens to register to vote at Department of Motor Vehicles offices at the same time they apply for or renew drivers licenses. And that allow citizens to sign up to vote at welfare offices and a select few other government agencies.
In no way are these unreasonable intrusions on states' rights. Resistance to them seems primarily a product of partisan paranoia.
GOP members of Congress tried long and hard to block passage of the motor-voter law because, reportedly, they believed it would expand the Democrats' base of voters. Yet the early evidence suggests that Republicans are the beneficiaries.
The law isn't yet in effect in all states, Virginia being one where implementation has been delayed. But, in the South particularly, it's the ranks of Republican-leaning voters that may have been revved up as a result of registration procedures made simpler and more convenient. Republicans, after all, are not lacking these days in populist appeal.
Recent Associated Press interviews with voter-registration officials in about a dozen states suggest that Democrats may actually be losing ground since many new voters signing up at welfare and other public-assistance offices profess to be independents. This would seem to give lie to Republicans' claims that registration at such offices would build the constituency of folks who love and trust Democrats for government services.
Moreover, a soon-to-be-released analysis of registration patterns suggests that motor-vehicles offices are signing up the bulk of new voters in most states. These voters tend to be young, conservative and Republican-inclined.
Such trends may not cause GOP lawmakers' zeal for repeal to wane, assuming it was the principle of the thing that bothered them in the first place. Still, there is something virtually un-American about distrust of an expanded electorate.
The purpose of the new law is not simply to make voting regulations more uniform or to take the hassle out of registration. It is to encourage more people to vote, to get involved with their government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Too many now are not involved. Voter turnout in America is a national shame, especially compared with other democracies, including many where the right to vote is not yet so secure that it can be taken for granted. Studies show that turnout in the United States is linked to the relative ease of registration.
Surely, any party that claims majority support for its philosophy, that has confidence in its proposals and candidates, should have nothing to fear from a broadened electorate and higher voter turnout.
by CNB