Obviously I think there’s a lot of silliness in the election-monitoring of Florida stuff. But in generaln I don’t understand why Republicans and the Bush White House ran away from the issue of electoral reform. Democrats have this myth that if elections were run more honestly and accurately in this country that Democrats would gain. One can see why they’d think that in the wake of Florida (let’s not start that argument again). But the obvious fact, it seems to me, is that if every vote was counted — and counted only once — Democrats would suffer big time. They’d come out poorly in states like Arizona where, allegedly, the Democrats bus indians from one polling station to another; in Lousiana where the Democrats do the same with blacks and in various major cities like St. Louis where the Democrats play games by extending voting times in certain areas.

To me it’s a lot like DNA testing for people on death row. I think it should be free to anyone who might be helped by it. Why? Because wherever DNA might be relevant it will in all likelihood prove the guilt of the convict. And, if in the off chance it proves his innocence, great. Who wants to execute innocent people? That may just boost the public’s confidence when it comes time to fry the guilty.

Let’s have serious electoral reform, which would include making it much harder to vote in different locations, with bad ID and without proof of citizenship. How, exactly, would that hurt the GOP?