Candidate Terry Branstad promised to make it harder for some people to vote. He wants to turn back the clock, reversing a national trend of thirteen years.

In the early days of the USA only property owners could vote. A hundred years later all barriers to voting were gone except the one that kept women away from the polls. Then new barriers were built against Blacks and felons, notably poll taxes and other tests that were unfairly applied.

Branstad thinks it terrible that everyone might be able to vote: “All of the sudden you're just going to make 50,000 people eligible to vote,” he fretted. Imagine that!  
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