MSNBC's point-man on all things voter ID-related, Zachary Roth, has glommed on to Jeb Bush's accidentally check-marking himself as Hispanic on a voter registration form to argue essentially, that most Americans are dumb and unreliable to take the effort to register themselves to vote and, thereby, government should take over and automatically register all eligible citizens.
"Jeb Bush is laughing off the news that he listed himself as Hispanic on a 2009 voter registration form," but make no mistake, Roth insisted in an April 7 article, what "looks to have been a harmless mistake by the former Florida governor" actually "underscores a crucial problem with our election system....By putting ordinary people in charge of registering themselves to vote, we’re guaranteeing frequent errors—some much more consequential than Bush’s—while reducing the number of people who end up voting."
Indeed, "[t]hat’s why there’s a growing movement to shift the burden of registration away from would-be voters and onto election administrators," the MSNBC.com writer added, going on to insist that conservative Republicans should welcome such a policy change (emphasis mine):
[I]f you genuinely think, despite the evidence, that illegal voting is a significant threat to elections, then putting the government – not individuals – in charge of the registration process should make it much harder for ineligible voters to slip through.
Those aren’t the only reasons it might make sense to take registration out of the hands of individuals. Having to register to vote is a practical barrier for some people, especially those who are poor and marginalized. So shifting that burden to the state leads to more people voting. That’s more urgent than ever after a midterm election that saw just 36% of eligible Americans turn out—the lowest figure since World War II.
A standard voter registration form is easily downloaded from the Internet or obtained at local libraries, DMVs, and post offices. They take all of 5 minutes, max, to fill out, and they are not particularly tricky. Some states, like Texas -- no bastion of liberalism it -- make available pre-printed forms complete with pre-printed postage-paid envelopes so the cost of a 1st-class stamp is not an issue, and many states have free online voter registration, which, again, is perfectly free at any public library with Internet access terminals.
Among the states offering FREE online voter registration are deep red conservative states such as Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, and Arizona.
