Election Reform

Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) recently wandered around Capitol Hill armed with a video camera and a question: Why do we vote on Tuesdays? "Um. . . . " That was the response from most people -- even lawmakers. "Don't be embarrassed if you don't know the answer," Israel reassured his perplexed interviewees. "Hardly anybody does, including most members of Congress."

The nation's much-maligned election system passed a major test last week when more than 132 million Americans -- a record -- cast ballots with few reports of problems. But now, election reformers are calling for a move toward a "universal voter registration" system, in which the government takes the lead in ensuring that all eligible citizens are registered to vote. "This means the registration process would no longer serve as a barrier to the right to vote," said Wendy R.

Riverside County's aging absentee ballot system needs a major overhaul, and election officials must do a better job convincing absentee voters -- who accounted for more than half the ballots cast in the November election -- to vote early, county officials said Tuesday.

California finally is joining the pipsqueak states to become a player in the 2008 presidential election. But there's a chorus of cynical whining that is shortsighted and hypocritical. The cynics are fussing about the self-serving legislators -- mostly Democrats -- who have decided to move up California's presidential primary from June to Feb. 5 and give the public an opportunity to extend their term limits before they're forced out next year.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday decreed new election rules intended to make it harder for his faction's Hamas rivals to win the presidency or keep their majority in parliament. But the move only widened a rift between Abbas' West Bank administration and Hamas forces running the Gaza Strip, complicating any future effort to reunite the Palestinian territories as a single electoral entity. Hamas called the decree illegal and accused Abbas of abetting U.S.

Mexico's legislature approved major overhauls of the nation's tax and election laws Friday, untangling a months-long stalemate that had threatened to make the country ungovernable in the wake of last year's bitterly contested presidential election. Longtime rivals crafted the compromise in weeks of highly sensitive talks that gave President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, the tax reform it had sought for more than a decade.

A newly created Missouri company has made the first public donation to date -- $175,000 -- to a proposed California initiative that would alter how the state allocates its electoral votes. The donation arrived Sept. 11, one day after Missouri attorney Charles Hurth III created the company, TIA Take Initiative America. Hurth did not return phone calls Tuesday, and Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for the ballot measure, said he was not sure who was behind the donation.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger already was a poster boy for why we need real campaign finance reform in California. And now he has created a poster girl: Susan Kennedy. In fact, Schwarzenegger shows us why we need the ultimate reform: public financing of campaigns. That would dramatically shrink the politicians' money pots. There's way too much private money in politics, most of it invested by special interests seeking favors from the politicians they're bankrolling.

Vermont and its campaign spending reformers got a skeptical hearing from the Supreme Court on Tuesday as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. led the way in questioning whether a state could put a lid on money in politics. At issue is whether a state can limit both how much candidates can spend and how much contributors can give them. "We are trying to create competitive elections and grass-roots campaigning," with volunteers going door-to-door, said Vermont's attorney general, William H. Sorrell.

Under fire from county registrars and voter advocates, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said Friday that he would press for changes in state election law to avert widespread voting troubles that some elections officials have predicted for the June 6 primary. Trudy Schafer, program director for the League of Women Voters of California, said the changes would be a step in the right direction but do not resolve all concerns about voters' being kept off the election rolls.