The Political Acumen of Little Orphan Annie

Hillary Clinton gives a major speech against Republican's racist voter suppression plans, and Richard Hanson, who is generally considered one of the more knowledgeable academics on this phenomenon has a sad because moderate Republicans who support voting rights will be scared off by this.

My first response is, "Name 3 moderate Republicans on the national scene who have come out against voter suppression."

My second response is that voting rights have already been politicized by the Republican Party.

Voter fraud is rarer than getting struck by lightning in the United States, and the Republicans have passed so called "Ballot Integrity" laws without regard to the facts, and in a totally partisan manner.

Dr. Hanson looks at the world, and sees it as he wants it to be, not how it is:

Hillary Clinton spoke at Texas Southern University last week, where she put forward some good and provocative ideas for improving our elections. She wants Congress to fix the part of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court gutted in 2013. She wants to expand early voting periods nationally to at least 20 days. And most provocatively, she advocates automatic universal voter registration across the country, including a program to automatically register high school students to vote before their 18th birthdays.

But the partisan way she’s framed the issue—by blaming Republicans for all the voting problems—makes it less likely these changes will actually be implemented should she be elected president. Instead, she’s offering red meat to her supporters while alienating the allies she would need to get any reforms enacted.

………

However, talking about election reform so provocatively may also doom the chances for meaningful election reform. Clinton used her speech not only to advance these ideas but to bash Republican opponents, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, both of whom passed restrictive voting laws in the last few years. “What part of democracy are they afraid of?” she asked.

Republicans are not being sincere about their concern for voter fraud.

They use it as a fig leaf to keep black, brown, and young people voting.

Republicans do not want to fix the voting system. They want to manipulate it to partisan advantage.