Editorials: The fire next time | The Economist

The 45-mile drive from Union Springs, seat of Bullock County, Alabama, to Montgomery, the state capital, might not seem very arduous. But for some locals, the distance itself is not the main obstacle. Going to Montgomery, as some now must to get a driver’s licence, means the best part of a day off work for two people, the test-sitter and his chauffeur (there is no public transport). That is a stretch for employees in inflexible, minimum-wage jobs—and there are lots of them in Union Springs, a tidy town in which the missing letters on the shuttered department store’s façade betray a quiet decline, surrounded by the sort of spacious but dilapidated poverty characteristic of Alabama’s Black Belt. To some, this trek is not just an inconvenience but a scandal. The state’s voters must now show one of several eligible photo-IDs to cast a ballot, of which driving licences are the most common kind. Last year, supposedly to save money, the issuing office in Union Springs, formerly open for a day each week, was closed, along with others in mostly black, Democratic-leaning counties. After an outcry, the service was reinstated for a day per month; at other times, applicants head to Montgomery. For James Poe, a funeral-home director and head of the NAACP in Bullock County, the combination of a new voter-ID law and reduced hours is “insanity”. Such impediments may not be as flagrant as when, as a young man in Union Springs, he had to interpret the constitution in order to vote, but, he thinks, they are obnoxious all the same.

Editorials: The United States has a moral obligation to give Puerto Rico the right to vote | Noah Berlatzsky/Quartz

Voting rights has become an increasingly partisan issue. In Wisconsin, new voter ID laws led to brutal lines at the polls in urban areas—a development designed, even according to Republicans themselves, to suppress Democratic turnout. In Virginia at the end of April, governor Terry McAuliffe re-enfranchised all felons who had finished parole. In theory, the move returned the vote to 200,000 people. This was a refutation of a policy originally designed to explicitly deny black people the vote. It was also, potentially, a way to give more votes to more minority and poor voters, and tip a narrowly balanced purple state more Democratic in the US presidential election. The focus on voter IDs and felon disenfranchisement—while important—has inadvertently obscured other voting rights issues. Every year, with little comment, the United States denies millions of people representation in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and other territories. Washington, DC, has a population of over 650,000 people. That makes it larger than the states of Vermont or Wyoming, and yet it has no voting representatives in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. Puerto Rico has a population of around 3.5 million people, which makes it more populous than states like Nevada, Iowa, and Arkansas. But not only do Puerto Ricans lack Congressional representation, they also cannot vote in presidential elections (unlike residents of DC, who are entitled to three votes in the Electoral College).

Editorials: Texas’ draconian voter ID law retreads LBJ’s civil rights victory | Carl P. Leubsdorf/Dallas Morning News

The gripping movie version of “All the Way,” which premiered last week on HBO, centers on the combination of political brilliance and personal volatility that exemplified Lyndon B. Johnson’s triumphant first year in the White House. But its sub-text is civil rights, including the fight to protect the vote for Southern blacks at a time when enemies of that most basic American right didn’t hesitate to employ brutality, up to and including murder, to protect their segregated society. The movie’s timing is especially apt in an election year when an underlying issue is again voting rights, thanks to the efforts by Republicans governors and legislatures — granted free license by a conservative Supreme Court majority — to roll back those rights through new rules allegedly required to curb non-existent voter fraud. On Tuesday, the full 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard an appeal by Texas on behalf of one of the most draconian of those measures, the Texas voter ID law, after a three-judge panel upheld a federal district judge’s decision that it discriminated against the state’s growing minority population. Texas’ reliance on the 5th Circuit’s conservative majority — Republican presidents nominated 10 of its current 15 judges — symbolizes how the politics of these issues has changed.

Editorials: Two myths about the unruly American primary system | Richard Hasen/The Washington Post

In yesterday’s New York Times, a story suggests that after this year’s election, the U.S. political parties might struggle over whether to re-design our primary system. But before we think about potential changes, let’s examine the unique system we have today — and expose two myths usually told about how we got here. Many Americans will be surprised to learn that few democracies give primary elections a dominant role in selecting their parties’ nominees for the country’s highest office. In most systems, elected party members take a major role in choosing or filtering potential candidates. In Britain, for example, to be a Labour Party nominee for prime minister, you need to be nominated by 15 percent of Labour’s members in Parliament; the Conservative Party members nominate just two candidates. The wider party membership then chooses from this narrowed field, although only 1 percent of registered voters are party members (compared with 60 percent or so in the United States), because party membership entails more significant obligations. But starting in the 1970s, the United States stumbled — and I do mean stumbled — into a system that eliminated any meaningful role for party figures. Instead, unmediated popular participation, through caucuses and primary elections, came to control the way we choose presidential nominees. That uniquely populist system, which we now take for granted, has culminated in our current, stunning moment. Two essentially freelance, independent political figures — Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders — will either represent, or come surprisingly close to representing, the nation’s two major parties in the 2016 election.

Editorials: The Virginia GOP’s voting rights lawsuit would perpetuate injustice | The Washington Post

Republican leaders of Virginia’s legislature have asked the state’s highest court to block Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s order restoring voting rights to more than 200,000 felons who have served out their sentences — the latest in a series of GOP measures meant to dilute and minimize the electoral clout of African Americans in the commonwealth. The Republican lawsuit rests heavily on the idea that Virginia’s governor is invested with the authority to restore ex-convicts’ voting rights only if the restoration is “individualized” — a word that appears nowhere in the state’s constitution. In fact, the constitution explicitly empowers the governor “to remove political disabilities” arising from “conviction for offenses” and strips voting rights from a felon “unless his civil rights have been restored by the governor.”

Editorials: At least courts are protecting voting rights in Kansas | The Wichita Eagle

The mess that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has made of voter registration draws yawns at the Statehouse. At least the courts continue to look out for the thousands of Kansans who would have registered to vote since 2013 if not for the Kobach-pushed law requiring they produce U.S. citizenship documents. The most recent ruling came Tuesday from U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson in Kansas City, Kan. She ordered Kobach to register more than 18,000 prospective voters who’d filed applications at motor vehicle offices, as per the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, but whose registrations were stalled or canceled for lack of citizenship proof. (Though more than 32,000 registrations were in limbo at one point, before Kobach started purging them last fall after 90 days, Robinson’s ruling covers only those applications filed in the process of obtaining driver’s licenses.)

Editorials: Californians from both parties are working to expand voting rights | Alex Padilla/Los Angeles Times

If there's one thing that every American should agree with, it's this: Voting is the fundamental right in our democracy, the one that makes all others possible. The right to choose our representatives is why patriots dumped tea into Boston Harbor, why women marched for the 19th Amendment and why, 51 years ago, people of all races joined together to win the passage of the Voting Rights Act. But one of the most insidious ideas in the 2016 election is that voting rights are negotiable. More than 20 states have enacted voting restrictions that could prevent many Americans from exercising their fundamental right to vote this November. We saw the logical outcome of these laws last month in Arizona, when local election officials closed 70% of polling locations in Maricopa County. We will never know how many people didn't vote that day, frustrated by five-hour lines and overwhelmed poll workers.

Editorials: Baltimore elections: ‘stuff happens’ isn’t good enough | E.R. Shipp/Baltimore Sun

Back in 2000, the state of Florida became an international laughingstock over its difficulties tallying ballots. Baltimore has escaped that ignominy so far this year only because the fate of a presidential election is not in the balance. But the difficulty of its elections specialists in tallying ballots from April 26 is just as unforgiveable as was Florida's. Baltimore, we've got a problem here — and it did not begin with this election cycle. As The Sun recently reported, what we have experienced is in many ways déjà vu all over again. Still, a history of persistent problems does not mean the future has to be fraught with them, too — especially the predictable ones like too few and poorly trained election judges who are ultimately responsible for the smooth operation of more than 200 polling places and the delivery of voting results after the polls close.

Editorials: Kris Kobach is a big fraud on Kansas voter fraud | The Kansas City Star

Secretary of State Kris Kobach warned Kansas lawmakers last year that he knew of at least 18 suspected cases of double voting in recent elections. Wait, make that 100 cases! Kobach threw out these wild claims as he successfully pressed the Legislature to make him the only secretary of state in the nation with the power to prosecute in these matters. It was all part of Kobach’s continued loathsome attacks on U.S. immigration policy. He knew he could score political points with many Kansans by promising to stop “illegal” voters from canceling out the votes of red-blooded Americans. But now Kobach has been exposed as a big fraud on the issue of voter fraud, which studies have found to be almost nonexistent in America. Since the law took effect July 1, 2015, the publicity-seeking Kobach had filed a puny half-dozen cases by early May.

Editorials: Prepare for voter whiplash | Renée Loth/The Boston Globe

Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have both complained that voting and delegate selection rules in the various primary states are “rigged” or “corrupt” because they favor establishment candidates who know how to play by the complex rules. The two men are right in one regard: America operates under a crazy quilt of voting requirements, with each state making its own laws for different populations and with challenges to those laws whipping back and forth through the courts. But if the primaries have frustrated the candidates, try being a voter in November. In 17 states, voters will face restrictive new requirements for the first time on Election Day. Several states will now require various forms of identification. Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, and Kansas will even require proof of citizenship. Different forms of ID will be required in different states: Some will accept a bank statement or utility bill, others want to see a passport or birth certificate. Texas, notoriously, will accept a gun license but not a college ID card. If you don’t have the proper ID, different procedures apply. Some states require prospective voters to sign an affidavit attesting to their eligibility; others hold the ballot as provisional and only count it if the voter returns to the local election office with proof of eligibility. Then there are new rules for early voting, same-day registration, and mail-in ballots. Confused yet?

Editorials: New probe of Newby is deserved | The Kansas City Star

Brian Newby’s once-sterling reputation as the leader of the Johnson County Election Office has lost most of its shine in recent months. The latest blow: District Attorney Stephen Howe’s office reportedly is investigating allegations that Newby misused public funds during his time at the office, which is financed with county taxpayer dollars. An audit released earlier this year identified about $36,000 in costs it considered questionably related to Newby’s duties. The county said it would ask that he reimburse $5,478 in travel expenses. Newby has denied doing anything wrong. However, controversy also has dogged the former Johnson County official in his new role as executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in Washington, D.C. The nonpartisan office is supposed to help make voting more accessible and promote good election practices.

Editorials: Beirut’s election was surprisingly competitive. Could it shake up Lebanese politics? | Amanda Rizkallah/The Washington Post

On May 8, Lebanon held the first of four rounds of municipal elections. The only elections since 2010, this round of voting represents Lebanese citizens’ first opportunity to exercise their political voice since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, ensuing influx of refugees and popular protests against a paralyzing trash crisis. Lebanon’s politicians have repeatedly postponed the parliamentary elections originally scheduled for June 2013 and the country has been without a president since May 2014. Amid this political impasse at the national level, municipal elections have become the last remaining institutional mechanism for generating a modicum of political accountability. Beyond activists’ efforts to ensure the funding of these elections, protesters and members of civil society have called for greater decentralization and fiscal resources for municipal councils.

Editorials: It’s Time to Expand Voting Rights | Harry Kresky/Huffington Post

This presidential primary season has exposed serious fault lines in our election system. One has been known for years. The voting rights of African Americans and Latinos continue to be compromised. Another has become the focus of widespread attention by the media and by ordinary Americans for the first time. There is a vast block of non-aligned voters who are systematically excluded from partisan primaries, where the decisions that effectively determine who will take office are often made. Independents have militantly protested their exclusion from a presidential nominating process organized around party primaries and caucuses. A look at the recent Arizona and New York presidential primaries helps us understand the interplay between these two voting rights issues.

Editorials: The Supreme Court’s Next Big Fight Over Money in Politics | Richard Hasen/The Atlantic

At some point next year, the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to face a major First Amendment question: whether to overturn what remains of the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act. This measure prohibited political parties from raising “soft money”—unlimited funds that wealthy individuals, corporations, and labor unions could give to parties, thanks to a loophole in the post-Watergate campaign-finance laws. Such a ruling would allow political parties once again to take millions of additional dollars from donors who, as the Supreme Court found in 2003, use soft money to ingratiate themselves to election officials and secure access to them. How the Court rules is likely to determine whether the wealthiest donors will have an easier path to secure that access—and whether the rest of the country will suffer as a result. A special three-judge federal district court has been convened in Washington, D.C., to consider the law in light of recent campaign-finance rulings by higher courts. The suit, brought by the Republican Party of Louisiana, is being litigated by Jim Bopp, the attorney who successfully navigated Citizens United and other related cases to the Supreme Court. A key argument in the suit is that cases like Citizens United have called into question the constitutionality of the “soft-money” ban. Chief Justice John Roberts, in the 2014 McCutcheon case, seemed to invite such a challenge, raising the possibility that money given to strengthen parties deserves special First Amendment protection.

Editorials: The fraud of voter ID | News & Observer

A week after a federal judge upheld sweeping changes in North Carolina voting laws, The New York Times reported that studies focused on the centerpiece of the changes – the requirement of a photo ID to vote – have found that more than 1 in 10 adult Americans lack a government-issued ID and “compared with whites, the share of minorities without photo IDs is far higher.” The Times story focused on elections in Texas where a voter ID law adopted in 2013 continues in effect pending appeal despite being struck down by courts three times. The story cites the campaign of former U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, who lost his seat by a narrow margin that may well have reflected the effects of the photo ID law. “It’s tremendously undemocratic in a democratic society when you deliberately disenfranchise thousands of people,” he said. “Turnout is good for the system.”

Editorials: A Second Chance and the Right to Vote | The New York Times

Republican legislators in Virginia are threatening to sue Gov. Terry McAuliffe to block his executive order restoring voting rights to more than 200,000 residents who have completed their felony sentences. The lawmakers have no good legal case, and worse, such a suit would be affirming Virginia’s racist history. Virginia is one of just four states — along with Iowa, Florida and Kentucky — that continue to impose a lifetime voting ban on people convicted of felonies. In recent years, both Democratic and Republican governors have worked to lift this burden, either by streamlining the application process for individuals or trying to restore rights to specific classes of people, like those convicted of nonviolent felonies.

Editorials: Restoring Virginians’ voting rights | The Washington Post

The intent of Virginia’s ban on voting by convicted felons was to weaken the political power of black people, whose electoral clout was abhorrent to the racists who enacted the prohibition a century ago. Today, Virginia Republicans, who have done their utmost to dilute minority voting by enacting arbitrary voter-ID requirements, are animated by the same idea. Determined to block any surge in African American electoral participation in November, which would mainly benefit Democrats, they are planning litigation to challenge Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s executive order that restores voting rights to more than 200,000 former convicts who have finished serving their felony sentences. When Richmond’s GOP leaders embarked on their campaign to tighten voter-ID laws, they could cite no widespread or credible problem with fraud at the polls. Today, similarly, they can point to no constitutional language preventing Mr. McAuliffe, a Democrat, from restoring voting rights to ex-convicts — something that takes place routinely in most states.

Editorials: Voter ID laws are reaction to nonexistent problem | Greg Williams/The Tennessean

The usual “voter identification law” proponents merely cherry-pick others’ empirical data that specifically lend credibility to their arguments, and often they reject even the proper context. For years, Hans von Spakovsky (a former federal election commissioner and U.S. Justice Department official, currently a Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow) has juxtaposed the Pew Center’s numbers with a 2000 Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation of Georgia voting records. That newspaper reported initially having exposed 5,400 instances of the deceased being recorded as having voted. Von Spakovsky has used this source repeatedly to support his argument and has proffered that this article’s findings are “substantial to me.” Consistent with von Spakovsky’s routine, Jane Mayer, a New Yorker investigative journalist, noted he did not mention in their interview that the article’s findings were revised. Mayer’s investigation found that the Journal-Constitution ran a follow-up article after Georgia's secretary of state’s office indicated the vast majority of those cases appeared to reflect clerical errors. The newspaper admitted that even its lone specific example of a deceased voter casting a ballot did not prevail. A living voter’s ballot was credited to a dead man whose name was almost identical.

Editorials: ‘Fair is fair’: A sensible path for D.C. statehood | The Washington Post

District Officials will in the coming months spend a lot of time and energy on a quest that even they realize is the longest of long shots: D.C. statehood. That doesn’t mean they are wrong to undertake the effort. It is important to keep reminding the American public and its leaders about the unjust treatment of people who live in the nation’s capital. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has announced a new front in the District’s long-running fight for equal rights. She proposed a three-part process that would allow the District to directly petition Congress for admission as a state. Statehood would give the District voting representation in the House and Senate as well as legislative and budget autonomy. The petition would be preceded by a November referendum and, if city voters favored statehood, a convention to draft and ratify a constitution. The new state would exclude a small federal enclave, thus making a constitutional amendment unnecessary.

Editorials: Smartmatic all set, Comelec unready | Jarius Bondoc/The Philippine Star

Smartmatic says it’s 100 percent ready for Election Day. Ready to what, rig the results? Election automation experts cannot but be suspicious. The Venezuelan voting-machine seller has pulled off too many shady deals with the Comelec. It is tainting the credibility of Election 2016. The backdrops for the balloting on Monday are worrisome, to say the least. The Comelec official website has just been hacked. Sensitive personal data of 55 million voters, which the Comelec negligently included, have been dumped on the Internet. Cybercriminals likely have copied the fingerprints, photographs and signatures. Voters will fall prey to blackmail, extortion and cyber-fraud. Smartmatic is striving to dissociate itself from the Comelec fiasco. It claims that its automated election system is hack-proof. Experts have never disputed that. What they’ve been saying all this time is that Smartmatic’s machines are prone to internal manipulation.

Editorials: Voting Gets Harder in Kansas | The New York Times

Excited to participate in the presidential election, more than 22,000 people in Kansas applied to register to vote in a three-week period in February just days before the state presidential caucuses. It was a reassuring display of democracy — except that two-thirds of that group remain officially held “in suspense,” unregistered and unable to vote. This is because they have not met the draconian requirement of the state law, approved by the Republican Legislature, that they provide a passport, birth certificate or naturalization papers. This electoral limbo amounts to crude voter suppression, and no one seems certain whether all qualified citizens in Kansas will be allowed to vote in the primary election in August for state offices and in the November general election. Court challenges are underway, with the American Civil Liberties Union documenting what it calls the “chaos” wrought by the state law. It stands contrary to federal law, which allows people to register when they get a driver’s license or state ID and attest, under criminal threat of perjury, that they are citizens.

Editorials: Voter ID bill could sink Legislature’s last weeks, to no good end | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

For at least 10 years, the Republican-dominated Missouri Legislature has been trying to pass a law requiring voters to present photo identification before casting ballots. They actually succeeded in 2006, but the state Supreme Court threw out the voter ID law before it could take effect. The issue is back again this year, having passed the House only to run into a series of Democratic filibusters in the Senate. The eight Senate Democrats should stand firm. Senate Republicans should be honest: House Bill 1631 basically solves a problem that doesn’t exist — voter impersonation fraud — and would have a disproportionate effect on minority voters. Higher courts may well declare it unconstitutional. That being the case, the Senate’s Republican leaders must decide if they want to take the extreme step of shutting down debate to pass an unnecessary, punitive and highly partisan law that would deny some 200,000 Missourians their right to take part in the democratic process.

Editorials: Virginia Reinstates Voting Rights to Violent Felons—What States Will Be Next? | Pacific Standard

In a landmark executive order signed last week, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe restored the voting rights of more than 200,000 former felons, including violent offenders. Until now, former inmates needed to apply before they could re-gain the right to vote. Now, ex-convicts who have completed their parole requirements are automatically able to register to vote without a special petition. The ruling carries special weight among black communities—25 percent of African Americans living in Virginia who were barred from voting based on their past convictions will now get to vote. “Wow, this is incredible, I finally feel like a full human being.” Although McAuliffe has long been advocating for broader voting rights, the decision still came as a surprise to many. In fact, the New Virginia Majority, a community organization that focuses on civic engagement, have been working since 2007 to restore voting rights for ex-felons.

Editorials: Dark Money and an I.R.S. Blindfold | The New York Times

It is plainly illegal for foreigners to contribute to American political campaigns. But reform groups are warning that the ban would be gravely undermined by a little-noticed bill advanced Thursday by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee. It would alter the current tax code provision that, while permitting the identity of donors to 501(c) “social welfare” groups to be kept firmly secret from the public, requires that the donors be privately identified to Internal Revenue Service officials responsible for enforcing the law. Politically oriented groups claiming dubious exemptions as “social welfare” nonprofits have proliferated in recent elections, allowing donors — including publicity-shy campaign backers — to work from the shadows.

Editorials: The Retreat From Voting Rights | William Barber II/The New York Times

On Monday, Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of Federal District Court in Winston-Salem, N.C., upheld legislation passed in 2013 that imposed far-reaching restrictions on voting across this state, including strict voter-identification requirements. Judge Schroeder justified his decision by claiming that robust turnout in 2014 proved that the law did not suppress the black vote. But in reality, his ruling defended the worst attack on voting rights since the 19th century. That attack began almost immediately after a 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder, which weakened Section 5 of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Section 5 required federal pre-approval of changes to voting laws in places with a history of discrimination, including parts of North Carolina. Within hours of that ruling, lawmakers in Raleigh filed H.B. 589, proposing some of the toughest voting rules in the country. Referring to Shelby, one sponsor expressed his relief that curtailing voting protections could move forward now that the “headache” of the Voting Rights Act had been removed. The Legislature passed the bill, and it was signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican.

Editorials: Restoring voting rights to felons is political. It’s also right. | The Star Ledger

There are 5.8 million Americans who will be barred from voting this year, because their home states deny felons that fundamental right. Lately, there have been efforts to reduce that absurd statistic. In Maryland, the legislature restored voting rights for felons who served their prison sentences by overturning their governor's veto. And last Friday, by executive order, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored suffrage for more than 200,000 people – a good start toward reinstating full citizenship to 47 percent of the American prison population serving time for non-violent drug offenses. Call it a liberating blast of fresh democracy – even though three states (Florida, Kentucky and Iowa) still bar felons from voting for life. Maine and Vermont occupy the other extreme, allowing felons to vote even as they serve their time. And many states, like New Jersey, restore suffrage only after felons have served their full sentences – including prison time, parole and probation.

Editorials: Voting Rights Lose in North Carolina | The New York Times

Late Monday, a federal district judge upheld one of the most regressive and restrictive voting laws in the country — a 2013 North Carolina law that eliminated same-day voter registration and preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds; cut back on early voting by a week; barred counting votes cast outside voters’ home precincts; and required voters to show identification at the polls. State lawmakers said these changes were necessary to reduce fraud and inefficiency in elections — though there is no evidence of voter fraud to combat or inefficiency to cure. The Justice Department, the American Civil Liberties Union, the N.A.A.C.P. and the Advancement Project, among others, sued on the grounds that the law illegally discriminates against minority voters.

Editorials: Voting rights in Switzerland can’t be free | Renat Kuenzi/SWI

Foreigners account for a quarter of the Swiss population, but they can’t vote in elections or referendums. Is this acceptable in a fully-fledged direct democracy? Swiss and German politicians are divided in their opinions.
“Swiss living abroad are also foreigners in their countries of residency. They often have a firm view of what’s happening in Switzerland, and at the same time they take part in political life in their adopted countries,” Walter Leimgruber, President of the Federal Migration Commission, pointed out at a recent event. Leimgruber’s conclusion is that the Swiss living abroad are citizens of two states, and living proof that political engagement is possible in two societies. In his view, they’re a good example of how foreigners can enjoy political participation wherever they live, regardless of nationality. Economic interdependence caused by globalisation, and the fact that 50% of marriages in Switzerland are bi-national, mean “political rights will have to be redefined,” argues Leimgruber, a professor of cultural studies at Basel University.

Editorials: Demi Moore, George Wallace and Americans’ abused voting rights | David Horsey/Los Angeles Times

Back in 2012, prior to that year's South Carolina presidential primary, I found myself in Charleston at a big rally for Mitt Romney. Sandwiched among voters waiting for their candidate to show up, I eavesdropped on an animated conversation between two vocally conservative men. One of them was happily detailing how various Republican-controlled legislatures were passing new voting restrictions that would hurt Democrats. The other man was trying to sound equally enthusiastic, but it was clear he felt some ambivalence. He wondered out loud if it was a good idea for government to be subverting the most fundamental right in a democracy. Then, realizing he was straying uncomfortably from the party line, he quickly dropped this errant thought and agreed with his friend that GOP legislators were right to stick it to the other team. It is a sad reflection on the state of our republic that the man in Charleston is far from alone in abandoning a sacred principle. Sometimes by nefarious design, sometimes through tired tradition and sometimes because of incompetence, political parties and state governments set up roadblocks to casting ballots instead of engaging as many people as possible in the political process.

Editorials: Bernie Sanders is right: poor people don’t vote and it’s a problem | Lucia Graves/The Guardian

Bernie Sanders said something he wasn’t supposed to say: that poor people don’t vote. Although it’s true that voter turnout is inversely correlated with income, all anyone wanted to comment on was that Sanders looked defensive and deflated on Meet the Press, where he made the statement on Sunday. Lost was the fact that this is a truth we should be struck by, ashamed of even, and should do more about. The impolitic remark came in response to a question about why the candidate had been losing so much in the places he should have been winning (he’s lost 16 of the 17 states with the highest levels of income inequality). The most straightforward thing for him to say would be to acknowledge that he hasn’t performed well with minority voters who tend to be less affluent. But he didn’t want to say that on television. Instead, he decided to talk about something else that’s actually more important than where he, personally, is up or down. He said: “Poor people don’t vote. I mean, that’s just a fact. That’s a sad reality of American society”. He also noted that “80% of poor people did not vote” in the 2014 election. On the airwaves he was chided for acting like an analyst rather than a candidate and for bringing his campaign down to reality in all the wrong ways. Fact-checkers immediately aimed to set the record straight only to discover that Sanders claim was “mostly true” or even, looked at comprehensively, totally correct.