I’ve been down at the Capitol a couple of days this week, lobbying for Election Day Registration.  On Monday the bill passed out of its House State Government subcommittee, where my own Rep. Wessel-Kroeschell headed up the effort.  It passed out of the full House committee on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday I was there to see it pass party-line out of the Senate State Government full committee.  The Republicans were vociferous in their opposition, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them try to make a big issue out of it.

Today the Register came out in support of same day registration, while a few days ago the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier recycled Republican talking points against it.

The Republicans have basically two arguments they are using against it – We shouldn’t pander to uninformed voters, and it will increase the possibility of fraud.  Both of these reasons are stupid.

The idea that voters unregistered in their current precinct are uninformed voters is obnoxious and insulting.  It assumes a perfect correlation between understanding election law minutia and important decisions, when people who feel very strongly about issues might not know that moving across the state requires them to reregister.  Students, who tend to move almost every year, are especially affected by this.  So are young people in general.  You don’t have to take my word for it though – compare voter turnout in same-day registration state Minnesota vs. Iowa.  Anyone who makes the effort to go to the polls on election day ought to be able to vote – any argument against that is really an argument against American democracy.

The Republican argument of fraud is getting kind of stale, seeing as how they have trotted out for every attempt they make to restrict voting, from cutting poll hours, reducing access to absentee ballots, to forcing every voter to bring a photo ID to the polls.  We haven’t done any of those things, and we haven’t had any voter fraud in Iowa.  Minnesota has had same day registration since 1973, and they haven’t had any fraud.  (There was one case of a developmentally disabled man trying to vote twice – hardly what I would call fraud.)

The fact is, if someone really wanted to commit fraud in Iowa, they could already.  They could vote under the name of someone who has moved out of state, they could register under the name of anyone whose social security number they know and vote for them either absentee or at the polls, and any number of other ways to cheat the system.  The benefit for doing this is so low though (one extra vote) and the penalty so high ($7500 fine and five years in prison per offense) that no one would do it.  While you would only probably be caught using those methods of fraud, you would be GUARANTEED to be caught if you tried to game same-day registration.  You have to show a Photo ID, proof of residence, sign an oath, and fill out a registration form to vote.  If you did this at more than one location, you WILL be caught.  In the event that someone did decide to commit election fraud, there is NO CHANCE that they would try to do it under this system.

Election Day Registration is basically badass, and I believe it will pass on party line votes.  I just wish Republican legislators weren’t all either idiots or liars, and they would either be honest about their reasoning (they hate voting) or they could pass the bill in a bipartisan fashion.

If you are represented by any Republicans, I strongly encourage you to contact them and give them some shit on their talking points.