Democratic Sen. Chris Coons (Del.) introduced a bill that would created a competitive grant program to reward states that “aggressively pursue election reform.”
Coons introduced the bill in response to the long lines and delays that greeted voters at the polls earlier this month. So far, though, his solutions haven’t attracted GOP sponsorship.
“The irregularities and delays that plagued this year’s elections cannot be allowed to happen again,” Coons said. “Long lines are a form of voter disenfranchisement, a polling place running out of ballots is a form of voter suppression, and making it harder for citizens to vote is a violation of voters’ civil rights.”
Introduced with Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely (FAST) Voting Act of 2012 authorizes a federal program to award grants to applicant states based on how well they improve access to the polls in at least nine specified ways: providing “flexible” registration opportunities, including same-day registration; providing early voting, at a minimum of 9 of the 10 calendar days preceding an election; providing no-excuse absentee voting; providing assistance to voters who do not speak English as a primary language; providing assistance to voters with disabilities, including visual impairment; providing effective access to voting for members of the armed services; providing formal training of election officials, including State and county administrators and volunteers; auditing and reducing waiting times at polling stations; and creating contingency plans for voting in the event of a natural or other disaster.
The program also requires an “assessment of steps the state has taken to eliminate statutory, regulatory, procedural and other barriers to expedited voting and accessible voter registration.”
Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) introduced a companion version in the House on Thursday evening, just hours after Coons introduced his bill in the upper chamber.
I find it hard to believe that the only intelligent 535 people in the nation are in the Congress. If this is a real issue, the states can handle it on their own. Pass.
Of course, I find it hard to believe there are 535 intelligent people in Congress in the first place.
I am reminded that Saddam Hussein was reelected in Iraq by a 99% margin shortly before the first Iraq war. This was the result of ultimate flexibility in the vote. It may take years; it may take decades, but human history shows that when the people lose faith in the sanctity of the vote, war results and nations fall. And their leaders are pulled out of their holes and hanged.
If you have to make voting convenient, then it maybe it isn’t very important to them. To those who think voting is important, they will do it even if it’s not convenient.
It’s not important to them.
There is more to democracy than stuffing as many people into a voting booth like it was some type of clown car…
It’s all about facilitating vote fraud.
Isn’t the most logical solution to this problem to open up more polling stations on election day?
I saw a story where people are already camping out to hold their place in line to shop on Thanksgiving evening. They now have family traditions to eat Thanksgiving dinner while camping out, really? Do they even know what Thanksgiving is about?
If they can camp out to shop, they can get to the polls and wait in line like everyone else. Perhaps some counties need to open up more precincts but no changes to expand early voting and certainly not same day registration. Voting laws are state matters, keep the Feds out of it. These Congressmen did and said nothing about the suppression of military voters, and the media?…zzzzzzzzzz. Go away and find ways to cut spending, we are broke.
Registering to vote should end on the last working day June each year. The only other activity afterwards would be for registered voters moving from out of state and local registered voters who are moving from one precinct to another. Three years and six months is plenty of time for any party to get people registered for a presidential election.
Presidential voting should ‘begin’ as mandated by current law and continue for one week. A new federal law should be that ALL party surrogates and candidates campaigning efforts must end one week prior to the beginning of the mandated vote date. There should be stiff federal fines for any forms of violations during the pre-voting week and the voting week on a per incident basis. The local political party apparatus would suffer the fines.
If this were the case, we’d have a much better and less corrupted voting system.