Saturday, April 02, 2005
State Election Reform: Small Steps
I stumbled across Carl's Washington State Political Report a while ago (thanks for the link, Carl). Within I found a link to a Seattle Times article on part of the legislature's activity.
A House committee, racing to meet a deadline yesterday, passed a modified version of the Senate's extensive election-reform package over the objections of Republicans, some of whom stormed out of the meeting before the votes were complete.Now, I have little sympathy for those sore loser Republicans who keep whining about the election and trying all manner of gimmickry to keep alive a dying issue. But I think common-sense measures such as requiring picture ID at the polling sites should have been in place decades ago. On that, I agree with Republicans - and, I suspect, with the overwhelming majority of the electorate.
... More than a dozen GOP amendments to the two main bills, including one that would require photo identification at the polls, were defeated by the Democratic majority on the House State Government, Operations & Accountability Committee.
