Fix the vote

It should be easier to vote.\nThat statement comes with some loaded rhetoric. We're not suggesting it should be easier to cheat in elections, in which one person takes liberty to cast a couple ballots for a particular candidate. Nor are we saying it should be easier for non-residents to sneak into the polls and cast illegal ballots.\nRather than "easier," perhaps we should say that elections should be more convenient for voters. It should be up to the citizens of a state to participate in the political process, but it should be up to the state to ensure the political process is as accessible as possible for its citizens.\nSome provisions before the Indiana General Assembly last week would have helped make elections more accessible for the people of Indiana -- particularly for college-aged students, who float into Bloomington, hang out for four years, grab a degree and then go home. Unfortunately, these provisions were cast aside. \nA proposed amendment from state Sen. Billie J. Breaux, D-Indianapolis, to an elections bill would have extended voting hours at Indiana polls from 6 to 9 p.m. Breaux's amendment was rejected in a bitter party-line vote, 33-17. Another amendment, rejected 37-1, would have allowed citizens to register to vote all the way up to Election Day. The current deadline of 29 days before the election will stand until further changes.\nThe arguments in favor of making elections more accessible are clear to see: it all comes down to increasing turnout. With the changing landscape of the American workforce and family dynamics, and with increased attention on instant computer-age technology, election protocol changes will be necessary, if not soon inevitable. And while Breaux's 9 p.m. proposal might be a little demanding if polls open at 6 a.m. -- something like 7 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m. would seem more feasible -- Indiana election law needs to be brought into the 21st century while maintaining some semblance of order on the state's behalf.\nBut the arguments against this provision are a little more confounding.\nState Sen. R. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, said the Senate should decide against the voting hour extension because a later closing would mean Indiana would no longer be among the first states to report presidential election results.\nHuh?\nIndiana, along with Kentucky, is indeed one of the first states to report presidential election results. But Indiana is hardly a swing state and the prestige is rather minimal. The reason everyone knows which way Indiana leans when the polls close at 6 p.m. is that the state has voted for the Republican candidate for the last 10 elections. There would be no harm to our electoral reputation if we closed our polls an hour or two later.\nBut the strange anti-extension argument doesn't stop there. State Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, said the business at bars is apparently a good enough reason to reject an extension in voting hours. By law, bars must remain closed as long as the polls are open, and if citizens were voting later into the evening, bars couldn't open until later in the evening.\nDouble huh?\nCertainly we're as pro-business as anyone else when it comes to the health and vibrancy of the bar scene. But a sacrifice can be made on one night every two years to push back the opening of a bar to allow more people the time to vote. Bars could even embrace this democratic push by adopting a catchy slogan. May we suggest, "You don't have to go vote but you can't stay here"?\nOn the issue of same-day voter registration, the options are a little trickier. Only states small in size, like Rhode Island and New Hampshire, and sparsely populated states, like Wyoming and Idaho, can feasibly undertake same-day registration. For Indiana, same-day registration could prove problematic.\nYet the current 29-day cutoff could surely be slimmed down to something more like 10 or 15 days, allowing Indiana's secretary of state office time to collect and file voter registration cards. As it stands, voter registration drives are essentially moot 29 days before elections, but that month-long window before people head to the polls has been shown to be the key time when citizens are at their most alert of the candidates and their positions. \nThe bottom line of these electoral changes is that every step taken along the way -- for example, the current initiatives to increase the presence of voter registration cards -- is directed to the idea of increasing participation in democracy. There's still time during this short legislative session to make the necessary changes to state election law.