You're right. The GOP may chalk up big wins this year, no matter what. The interesting thing, politically, is how it will be interpreted. Because if the GOP doubles down on what it is doing now, it is an iron-clad guarantee that we'll be inaugurating President Hillary in 2017.

akadjian -

That is very interesting... very interesting indeed. Please keep us posted on how the effort progresses. I'm in favor of a federal constitutional amendment to do the same thing, myself, so I will be interested to hear the progress of such efforts at the state level.

-CW

Here in Ohio we're working to get a voter bill of rights put on the ballot for a vote in November.

Don't know if it will happen but this is the kind of thing that I think is a good idea.

As I've been gathering signatures, I've been talking to people about all the shenanigans going on and it pisses people off.

They are deliberately making it harder for working people to vote here in Ohio. I tell as many people as I can.

We also call them the John Kasich re-election laws. Because let's be honest, this is basically what they are.

-David

Unfortunately, the outrage in 2012 was due to voter suppression efforts in an election people cared about. All too many don't care about non-presidential elections. I doubt you'll see much evidence of any backlash this year.

I'm an election judge. In our recent primary, for example, 90% of the voters I saw were over 70. And all but two were Republican. Of the remaining 10% half were Republican. Its the lack of interest in anything except Presidential elections that's the real obstacle to progressive victories. Republicans win off-year elections simply because they want to win them.--And bother to vote in order to make it happen.

The last thing Republicans should want to do is anything that would motivate Democratic voters. They, however, are unconcerned, confident that they'll always have superior off-year turnout. Much as they were confident the majority of voters would always be white and primarily male. Or, as in the Bush years, that they could establish a "permanent" majority.

Republicans' arrogant overconfidence, and sense of entitlement, is their greatest weakness. Their lack of contact with reality isn't just destructive, its self-destructive. Everything they've done the last decade speaks to short-term strategies and goals with no regard whatsoever for long-term consequences.

One final point (you got me thinking...):

I've proposed this in the past but am too lazy to look it up right now -- my favorite suggestion for how to encourage states to IMPROVE voter turnout would be for the order of presidential primaries to be set by the percentage turnout in the previous presidential election. Let the traditional 4 states go first (IA, NH, SC, NV). But then after that, the order would be: state with highest voter turnout previously, down to (the last primary to happen) the state with the WORST turnout previously.

That would create all kinds of incentive to improve your state's percentage. Oh, I know, it'll never happen, but it is fun to think about...

:-)

-CW

That is indeed the problem. I was thinking, while I wrote this, of a friend of mine who is about as uber-lefty as you can get. This was a few years back, when the voter ID thing first got going in a big way.

Her first reaction was the basis for that paragraph: "Well, that sounds reasonable, I have to show my ID to get on a plane or open a bank account." She grew up in the 'burbs, now lives in a small town, and has never lived in a city her whole life.

When I tried to explain there were millions of Americans who didn't fly, who didn't open new bank accounts, didn't drive, and didn't have an ID (because they had no need for one). She at first didn't believe me -- "millions?!?"

She has done research on her own and now condemns voter suppression efforts by the GOP, but her initial reaction always struck me -- the GOP zeroed in on one argument which seems reasonable, at first glance.

I did not address in this article the very recent proposal to put photos on Social Security cards -- a FEDERAL photo ID that everyone would have. It's an interesting idea, but every proposal I've ever seen for any kind of federal ID has always gone down in flames, so I have no idea of the chances of it ever being enacted.

LewDan [5] -

One other thing I didn't address here was the backlash in 2012 against voter suppression laws. The turnout increased, because people were so enraged that the GOP was trying to keep them from the polls with the extra hoops. The real question is can that outrage be sustained in 2014? I don't know the answer to that question, personally.

DisabledDoc -

I fully support making Election Day a national holiday, too, and also those who propose moving it to a weekend day.

I heard from a relative that PA was very strict about who could get an absentee ballot -- you had to produce paperwork (like a plane ticket) to prove you'd be out of the district. Oregon, on the other hand, has mandatory mail-in ballots. They still open polling places for those who like the tradition of handing their ballot in, but everyone gets their ballot in the mail. Different states have different attitudes, that's for sure.

But I have to say, in a general comment to everyone -- both here and at HuffPost, the comments that I've seen to this article kind of reinforce its main point: the big debate always reverts to Voter ID, when there are many other aspects of what the GOP is doing which deserve much more discussion. And more outrage.

-CW

There is no evidence of Whitehouse cover-ups in Benghazi. No evidence of Whitehouse ordered IRS harassment of conservative 501Cs. No evidence that any health insurance policies were cancelled because of the PPACA. No evidence of voter fraud at the polls.

Conservatives believe these things, not because they're reasonable, but because they suit their prejudice. And nonconservatives believe they're, if not true, at least possible, because conservatives keep saying they're true and no one is saying they are not.

This is about propaganda. "Reasonableness" is unnecessary. Republican arguments are proof of that. If Beck or Limbaugh says it, its "reasonable" because every other conservative will agree. No matter HOW crazy it is.

Republicans have come right out in the open and admitted Voter ID laws are about suppressing Democratic votes. The reason that's less believed than the combating fraud excuse isn't because its not "reasonable!"

Even Republicans are aware of their own failure, its why they're so desperate to rig the vote with gerrymandering and voter suppression. They know that beyond a loyal minority they don't connect with and aren't supported by the rest of America. Slandering Democrats to win votes solely because your being in opposition is a short-term strategy. As P.T. Barnum famously noted "you can't fool all the people all the time."

The Republican party's influence is on the wane and they've done nothing to change the underlying dynamics. Rather they're exacerbating them. The interest in seceding in so many "red" states isn't because they're "winning." Its a mistake to assess their success by polls and media opinion. They own the media. In THAT they've succeeded.

That "argument" makes no sense. If you think "objective" arguments are losers, because the American people are so stupid they simply cannot be educated or reasoned with, then the entire process of voting is pointless. Its predicated on the idea that ONLY The People can make objective determinations about government policy.

The Right has a sophisticated and extensive national network of media outlets dedicated to distributing their propaganda. It makes getting the truth out difficult, not impossible. The one thing that WILL guarantee our failure is validating their lies by trying to address "solutions" as if their propaganda were valid and factual. THAT'S a mistake Democrats make all too often.

I grew up with the Civil Rights Movement. That "defensive" approach didn't work either.--Until it succeeded. White voters are embracing these tactics, in part, because of their declining power at the ballot box, and their fears over losing that power. Its a strategy that's ultimately self-defeating.

Republicans are only holding on due to the abysmal turnout in off-year elections. It allows a committed minority to wield electoral influence all out of proportion to their numbers. But if they actually manage to make it important enough for people to turn out to vote even in off-year elections they'll be easy enough to defeat.

So appeasing them is the last thing on my mind. Johnson was wrong when he said he'd thrown away the white southern vote for a generation. Its been longer than that! Nixon, likewise, lost the Black vote for more than an election cycle or two also.

Voter suppression is in no danger of succeeding. If people think its starting to succeed it will REALLY fail. And the backlash will not only be spectacular it may well be permanent.

The idea that everybody needs ID is circular logic. The only reason IDs are required so much is federal government requiring even private businesses to check IDs. It isn't reasonable for government to require their presentation because "everybody" asks to see them. "Everybody" asks to see them because government requires their presentation. Organizations that actually need to use IDs issue their own for the purpose.

Republicans aren't just requiring photo-IDs, they're severely restricting what IDs will be accepted as well. And they're requiring that they be "current." As in you have to purchase a new one every few years. Identities don't change over time. Even expired licenses should still be acceptable as ID. What matters to the validity of the ID is the integrity of the issuing party, not how recently it was issued.

These unnecessary burdens in time and expense unconstitutionally suppress the ability of the most vulnerable to vote and add costs and obstacles that only apply to non-drivers. The right to vote is not a franchise reserved for those who drive and can afford automobiles!

You guys need to acknowledge that reason based arguments WILL NOT WORK. And haven't worked, even remotely effectively, since about 1980 or so.

Voter ID laws are on the rise because they present a simplistic argument that appeals to white voters; and those laws also disenfranchise statistically poorer demographics without TRADITIONAL dog whistle racism.

I know it's hard to advocate an offensive approach, especially when you're losing on the defensive. I mean we have enough to worry about amirite? But the fact of the matter is that the current approach is losing and will at best delay the inevitable.

The simple fact is that voter registration cards contain signatures because that's what election judges have always used to identify registered voters. The issue isn't requiring photo IDs. Its requiring some to unnecessarily jump through additional hoops, at additional personal expense, in order to vote. Poll taxes in other words.

The argument should be that if Republicans are concerned about voter identification why aren't they requiring sufficient identification be ISSUED instead of issuing INSUFFICIENT identification and requiring SOME voters to obtain ADDITIONAL identification on their own? THAT'S the burden that discriminatory. That's what suppresses votes. And that's what's obviously UNREASONABLE.

It isn't just the photo-IDs that are red-herrings, its debating whether photos should be required instead of debating why Republicans want voters to show drivers licenses instead of their voter registration cards. Not all voters have drivers licenses, but they all have voter registration cards. And identifying voters is what voter registration cards are for.

"The problem for Democrats on the issue is that the Republican position sounds awfully reasonable, at first glance. After all, these days you have to produce a photo identification to board an airplane, open a bank account, drive, and many other aspects of modern life. So what's the big deal with requiring a photo ID to vote, after all? This argument plays well in the suburbs, and among people who have never lived in cities or otherwise come into contact with groups of Americans (and there are indeed millions of them out there) who don't drive, don't have a bank account, never fly, and don't do all the other modern-life things which require ID"

This! All of this! I hate to say it but we've lost the reasonable argument debate and need to move onto something different. Which is hard thing to hear considering how crazy-pants the opposition has been on this. They have no facts, but they have an argument that appeals to what is still (not the future) the dominant demographic in America.

So where to do we go from from here? The solution is a non-mandatory, government financed, federal picture ID. Now I'm not saying that the libertarian wing of both parties won't raise holy hell about a non-compulsory federal ID. Because they will. But it is only solution that cuts this argument off at the knees.

"You have to present a picture ID to buy cigarettes or liquor, why do we have lower standards for exercising the franchise, the most fundamental and sacred right of all Americans?"

Not to say I agree with that argument, but it's currently winning, and liberals need to switch tactics.