It is time again to look at our most recent election and admit that there are still major issues with the way in which our government provides us, as Americans, our right to vote. Voting is a right and thus should be as free and easy for Americans as possible. However, in the 2004 election people in key states were in line to vote up to 11 hours, there was no way to verify the votes made on new electronic voting machines, and as usual many people would have had to ask for time off of work to vote and with lines in the hours that is a lot longer than most people can afford to take off, and we had state election officials presiding over elections while running the state campaigns for specific candidates.
There are several bills in the Senate now that address election reform, but there is only one that addresses all of the most pressing concerns and that is Bill # S.391, the Count Every Vote Act. This bill creates a national holiday on Election Day to honor the day that we exercise one of our greatest rights as Americans and to allow people to vote without having to take time off of work. The bill also allows for Election Day registration, which increases voter turnout. It forces provisional ballots to be counted, because a vote by a registered voter should count regardless of where the ballot is cast. It also forces any state that had voter wait times over 90 minutes to submit a plan to correct this and make every precinct meet minimums for voting machines and poll workers to prevent waiting in lines for hours. These measures are meant to show that America is serious about having fair elections and it should be the government, not the citizen, who does the work to be certain that every American is given the opportunity to vote.
The Count Every Vote Act will put an end to the illegitimate obstruction of Americans from voting that we saw so many court cases over during the 2004 election. As I mentioned it demands all provisional ballots are counted, the bill also require states to disclose the names of everyone that is to be removed from the registration list and all purging will be done as described by the Election Assistance Commission, to protect qualified voters from being unfairly prevented from voting. The bill also restores voting rights to nearly 5 million Americans who have been denied since they once committed a crime, even after they have served out their punishment. The bill also protects the right to vote of Americans that register, but their paperwork is somehow insignificantly incomplete. In the 2004 elections people were prevented from voting because they forgot to check the citizenship box or the form they used was on the wrong weight of paper, this is absurd and unless there is something deemed necessary by the Election Assistance Commission the registration will be accepted.
All of these reforms are aimed at showing Americans that the government will protect their right to vote and will safeguard it with every means available, so that we will not have to doubt the fair and free elections that are the right of Americans. |
