Ian Urbina had an important report in The New York Times earlier this week that explained the vast disenfranchisement that occurred in 2008. About 4 million to 5 million voters were unable to cast ballots because they had registration problems or didn't get their absentee ballots, and 2 million to 4 million were discouraged from voting because of long lines or ID requirements.
Unlike voter fraud, these problems are not hypothetical. Problems with voting disenfranchise millions of voters every election cycle, and yet press coverage during the election was dominated by the infinitesimal problem of voter fraud. Sensational stories about ACORN and registration fraud regularly failed to report how minimal the problem of voter fraud actually is, while ignoring the much larger problem of disenfranchisement.
Worse, one of the two major parties is committed to perpetuating the myth of voter fraud while ignoring very real problems of voter disenfranchisement. One sometimes gets the impression that the GOP is completely unconcerned with voting problems -- if fewer people are voting, there's less chance of fraud. Making voting easier is therefore a problem, because conservatives believe that will only lead to ineligible people casting ballots. On a public-policy front, the GOP's hostility to protecting the franchise, the Democratic Party's disinterest in fixing the system during non-election years, and the press' obsession with the sensational over the substantive means that reforming the voting system so that it leads to greater political participation is difficult if not impossible.
-- A. Serwer
