{"id":49508,"date":"2015-02-06T11:32:33","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T18:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/06\/oregon-will-have-universal-voter-registration-it-appears.html"},"modified":"2015-02-06T11:32:33","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T18:32:33","slug":"oregon-will-have-universal-voter-registration-it-appears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/06\/oregon-will-have-universal-voter-registration-it-appears.html","title":{"rendered":"Oregon will have Universal Voter Registration, it appears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which, frankly, is awesome. The more people are engaged in the voting process — even if they skip making use of the franchise in a given election — the more engaged and vested they are in our state and nation. Which is a good thing.<\/i><\/p>\n

That's part of what makes the inevitable GOP push-back so irksome, because the excuses given seem so feeble as to make it clear that they are more interested in restricting the vote to folk they think will vote for them. Which isn't democracy, people.<\/p>\n

1. "It's costly" — Chicken feed vs. other, far less useful programs, and, honestly, how do you put a value on creating participants in the governance of society.<\/p>\n

2. "It's a Democratic trick to get voters in who will vote for them" — Possibly, but, jeez, what ever happened to winning an election by presenting the best and most attractive ideas?<\/i> Isn't that why we have elections in the first place? If bringing in additional voters will favor the Democrats, that sounds to me like the GOP needs to figure out how to attract those voters, not make it more difficult for them to vote.<\/p>\n

3. "Lots of people already vote" — Awesome. Keep up the good work by encouraging even more folk to do so. (Note that this excuse contracts No. 2 above.)<\/p>\n

4. "If voters don't take the initiative to register, that's their problem" — Ah, personal responsibility. There's something to be said for this, philosophically, but the same could be said for the government not sending out ballots, not sending out issue descriptions, not notifying people of where polling places are, etc. "It's the voter's responsibility to find that stuff out," right? Sure. But why, ultimately, wouldn't you do this, unless you really don't want people voting?<\/p>\n

5. "There are potential privacy issues" — This part of the story was less clear, but it sounded like the confluence of voter registration and the DMV, and the presence of teen drivers, created "concerns" about data security. Well, fine, but that's an implementation issue. Nothing mentioned seems designed or allowed to make a major security breach, just something to keep in mind when actually doing the program.<\/p>\n

The GOP flailing about for reasons not to do this is, at the very least, unbecoming. At the worst, it's seems counter to the principles of participatory government that are fundamental to our nation.<\/p>\n

Originally shared by +Jack Malchow<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

What is not to like?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nWith Universal Voter Registration Bill, Oregon Dems Seek To Emulate Canada<\/a><\/span>
\nWASHINGTON — Oregon’s legislature is widely expected to pass an automatic voter registration bill this year that could add up to 300,000 voters to the rolls by the 2016 election, making it the first state in the nation to implement the kind of syste…\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which, frankly, is awesome. The more people are engaged in the voting process — even if they skip making use of the franchise in a given election — the more engaged and vested they are in our state and nation. Which is a good thing. That's part of what makes the inevitable GOP push-back so … Continue reading “Oregon will have Universal Voter Registration, it appears”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31297,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/09\/planning-for-2016.html","url_meta":{"origin":49508,"position":0},"title":"Planning for 2016","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Nov-12 8:59am","format":false,"excerpt":"I do not call this \"rigging the election* as it's not only perfectly legal but even, on the face of it, defensible. \u00a0But it is game-playing, and it is a concern for other reasons.The winner-takes-all nature of most electoral college challenges in US means that a slight advantage in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30821,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/24\/the-electoral-college-everyones-favorite-election-year-complaint.html","url_meta":{"origin":49508,"position":1},"title":"The Electoral College: Everyone’s Favorite Election Year Complaint","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Oct-12 8:53am","format":false,"excerpt":"Every four years the US gets into a big internal debate (at least in some circles) about the Electoral College and how it distorts the system from a pure, fine democracy into safe states, swing states, and the potential for winning the popular vote but not the electoral vote. For\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/california-electoral-college.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/california-electoral-college.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/california-electoral-college.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/california-electoral-college.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6234,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/10\/05\/get_out_the_vot.html","url_meta":{"origin":49508,"position":2},"title":"Get out the vote","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Oct-04 8:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"Joshua Claybourn regrets news reports that voter registration is way up for this election. But the reality is that most citizens aren't informed, and quite frankly I'm okay with them...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46776,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/06\/true-the-vote-discovers-the-extent-of-voter-fraud-in-the-us.html","url_meta":{"origin":49508,"position":3},"title":"True the Vote discovers the extent of voter fraud in the US!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 6-Nov-14 5:50am","format":false,"excerpt":"And ... that it's not very extensive. At all.\"True the Vote,\" a \"voter integrity:\" group, provided an app for folk to report on election day voter fraud they observed. What they got back were ... well, more cases of restrictive voter ID laws keeping people from voting than anything else.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31303,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/09\/its-all-the-fault-of-silly-women-and-little-pockets-of-blue.html","url_meta":{"origin":49508,"position":4},"title":"It's all the fault of Silly Women and Little Pockets of Blue!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Nov-12 5:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Because, you see, those evil Obamanites simply figured out that women swoon over George Clooney, so when they paid off Clooney to support Obama, all those crazy American women in the \"gender gap\" went running right off to vote for him, because they loooooove George Clooney! Silly women! Should probably\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13621,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/03\/dont_let_this_happen_to_y.html","url_meta":{"origin":49508,"position":5},"title":"Don’t let this happen to you","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Nov-08 3:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"An Election Carol. VOTE!...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}