GOP aims to retool election laws – again [UPDATED]
November 12, 2008 at 2:44 pm by Scott Henry in NewsThey’ll do it every time. One of the great ironies of our democracy is that we leave election law up to politicians.
We figured it was only a matter of time until Georgia Republicans, distraught over last week’s elections, began suggesting tweaks to voting guidelines. It’s the political equivalent of Monday-morning quarterbacking – except that, instead of second-guessing failed plays by the losing team, you day-dream about how the rules might have been changed to produce a different outcome.
I should note that both parties do this – in fact, the Democrats may have started it after Wyche Fowler lost the 1992 Senate runoff – and it’s pretty scuzzy every time it happens.
You’ll remember, of course, that state Sen. Eric Johnson, R-Savannah, started the ball rolling back in October when he called early voting “a mistake” after the GOP noticed that the wrong people seemed to be going to the polls. Then, only a day or so after the election, attorney Stefan Passantino, who heads the political law group for McKenna Long & Aldridge, Georgia’s most politically influential law firm, wrote an op-ed for the AJC in which he brazenly lambasted early voting as “uncontrolled voting.” Trust me, it’s got to be read to be believed.
Now, according to the AP, state Rep. Austin Scott, R-Tifton, who chairs the House Government Affairs Committee, which sets voting rules, wants to look at cutting back on early voting and doing away with the requirement for general election candidates to win a 50-percent majority to avoid a runoff.
Frankly, I’m surprised this is coming from Scott, who has been one of the most moderate and even-handed younger members of the Republican caucus – as well as a two-time Arnie winner.
To be honest, a solid month of early voting does seem like overkill, especially when most Georgia counties had only one polling place available during that time. Scott could be right that two weeks is enough for most elections. But the main reason he gives for reconsidering this GOP-initiated program is that early voting could somehow, just maybe, open the door to voter fraud.
Voter fraud has become Republicans’ new Chicken Little clarion call. The day when I hear that someone’s actually been convicted of voting twice, I’ll probably faint dead away.
The idea that the Republicans would lower the general election threshold again to 45 percent – after restoring it to 50 percent a few years back – in response to the fact that their unpopular senator now faces a runoff is preposterous. Sometimes the rules help your guy; sometimes they help the other guy.
Changing a rule because you don’t like the most recent election outcome will ultimately bite you in the ass. More than that, it’s a crappy way to run a democracy.
UPDATE: I’m reminded that Rep. Scott had proposed doing away with the 50-percent rule in 1996, but the bill didn’t go anywhere. So it seems that he doesn’t support the measure just because of the recent election – but if the bill passes next year, it will certainly be because his fellow Republicans are responding to Saxby’s fix.
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