The biggest voting bloc? The no-shows

There’s no right to vote enshrined in the Constitution, but it’s certainly enshrined in the national psyche. We moan when voter turnout declines and exult when other nations – most recently Iraq – use the ballot box to shape their political destinies.

Yet as often as Americans sing the praises of democracy, our actions say otherwise. We’re very good at extending the franchise and then taking it away, or making it more difficult or less attractive.

Though barriers of race, gender, education and age are gone, this is not a fully enfranchised nation. The record turnout last year belies an uncomfortable fact: More eligible voters didn’t vote than voted for either Bush or Kerry.

Some of those no-shows are lazy citizens who hitch a free ride on the democratic train, reaping benefits while paying little fare. But many Americans don’t vote because the process is unreliable, cumbersome and intimidating.

Legislation introduced in the Senate last week goes a long way to reform the system and expand the electorate. But because its sponsors include names like Clinton and Kerry, its worthy journey into law may stop at the partisan aisle.

Viewing the “Count Every Vote Act” as a Democratic ploy to bulk up the rolls before the next election is understandable, since the bill was introduced by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and co-sponsored by Sen. John Kerry. Understandable and shortsighted.

Whatever you think of the senators’ motives, this bill has many of the elements that bipartisan election reformers have long requested: Paper records of electronic voting. Election-day registration. Election Day as a national holiday. Restoration of voting rights for former felons.

To the degree that enacting these reforms would facilitate voting by poor people, minorities and the young, they may help Democrats in the short term. But those same fears were expressed by Republicans as they sought to block the Motor Voter Act of 1993. And what happened? A huge surge in GOP registrations.

“The partisan payoff of expanding the franchise is too unpredictable. It’s a mistake for anybody to regard those things as engraved in stone forever,” notes Harvard historian Alexander Keyssar, author of “The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in America.”

That’s because voting patterns shift – once blacks were devoted Republicans, and Catholics a Democratic bloc – and conventional wisdom is proved wrong. Consider November 2004, when conventional wisdom (and many exit polls) assumed that high voter turnout would spell victory for Democrats.

You know how that turned out.

As Keyssar says, “The way to view this is to vote on principle.”

And principle dictates that if this nation believed that democracy is stronger when more of its citizens participate, then these reforms would pass in a heartbeat.

Research shows that turnout increases when voters are allowed to register on Election Day, yet this simple reform operates in only six states – many of which, by the way, voted “red” in the last election.

A national holiday on Election Day not only facilitates turnout, but also enables more people to work at the polls and on campaigns. That’s not just a liberal idea; it was proposed in 2001 by a bipartisan national commission headed by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

Requiring electronic voting machines to produce a paper trail isn’t an exclusively Democratic idea, either. Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, has introduced a narrower bill along those lines. He knows that casinos in Las Vegas are easier to audit than most voting machines across the nation.

Permitting felons who have served their time to vote can’t possibly be a partisan idea – not when over half a million military veterans are unable to cast a ballot because of a felony conviction. Yet six states still disenfranchise a felon for life, and most others place some restrictions on voting.

These are good ideas no matter where they come from or whom they may help. Put partisanship aside and put them into law.