By a vote of 54-45 the Iowa House of Representatives approved of election day voter registration.  You can tell how desperate were the opponents of this bill by the fact that they raised this argument:

“Support the Troops!”

It’s just incredible.  One representative said that since soldiers died for the right to vote, we all could at least bother to register an arbitrary 10 days before the election. 

How much more charitable it would have been to reverse the argument, saying “Voting is a right worth dying for, so don’t try to keep people from the polls by throwing up needless roadblocks.”  Actually, Rep. Wessel-Kroeschell  did answer the troop argument by reminding opponents that young adults are most of the missing voters as well as most of the war casualties. 

A generation ago the US Supreme Court said registration deadlines could not be set except as a way to manage the workload of election officials.  Yet we never heard the case made that removing the deadline makes elections unmanageable.  Instead we heard attacks on the diligence, awareness, and honesty of voters.

Shameful.

Congratulations to those who advanced election law by voting for this bill.