Early, often and for the children

I had mixed feelings at the Drudge Headline (here)--"12 Smartcards go missing in Tennessee; control electronic voting machines," a little bit tickled that our state was in the limelight, but not sure what to expect once I read further.

But this seems to be a good time to opine on how moral relativism, demagoguery and sloppy electoral practices are a bad recipe.

As Hugh Hewitt has said, "If it ain't close, they can't cheat," and in the aftermath of "Florida 2000," the issue of ballot integrity (or election fraud) burst into the national consciousness.

Prior to 1994, the Left (and its representative party) was comfortable with its electoral standing: they won their share of presidential elections, held a majority of governorships and controlled a majority of state legislatures. Many dismissed the Republican Revolution as an electoral anomaly.

By 2000, things were getting serious. And you can imagine how "grave" they are now . . . the Democrats need a win if they are to continue believing that this trend toward being a permanent minority party can change.

Which brings me to my thesis. "Liberalism" (not the classic type--the modern type--the type that is almost an expletive in American politics) has largely embraced moral relativism. Sure, some Democrat constituencies aren't moral relativists, but those subgroups have signed on to a bigger agenda . . . an agenda which embraces moral relativism. I suppose that strong influences of "progressivism" (simplistically stated, "change is good" and "new is improved") and "populism" (simplistically stated, "everybody's doing it") among Democrat-leaning folks also helps them to accept the moral relativism.

Next, demagoguery, that is, "use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power," is a tempting tactic when you have media dominance and "feel-good" stances. Hillary Clinton doesn't (and certainly shouldn't) care more about my children than I do, but an ambiguous sentiment favoring the corpus of "children" propels many of her policy proposals to passage at the expense of individual liberties and the gain to government's reach. To be candid, I don't believe that Ophelia Ford conspired with Memphis poll workers to commit election fraud in Ford's special-13-vote-margin election victory, but I'm not sure such collaboration was necessary given the 6-year, incessant message from the Left: Bush-stole-the-Florida, blacks are routinely and blatantly and callously targeted for disenfranchisement, Bush-stole-Ohio, and DIEBOLD-DIEBOLD-DIEBOLD. The message sinks in, and if everyone is cheating, it's only fair . . .

Lastly, sloppy electoral practices. Bureaucracy is cumbersome and slow to respond, and, like most "government" it is particularly prone to the path of least resistance without major outside influences to direct it. And the task is enormous--very difficult, so most people involved (from the gov't side) are looking for shortcuts to accomplish their work (it ain't easy to manage a largely-volunteer system that gears up for 17 hours of intense work every two years without reliable predictors of "demand" and which is steeped in political/racial/class/economic controversy--and every county in the country is largely autonomous in its operation).

Couple this inertia-away-from-reform with the Left's over-the-top concern for ANY encumbrance upon "the franchise" (POLL TAX!, also see "demagoguery," above) and there is little likelihood for change in the direction of more ballot integrity. I won't be surprised when the Left demands "house calls" from election officials so as not to disenfranchise the poor, the helpless, etc.

All this is to say, this report from Memphis this morning doesn't surprise me . . . though it does trouble me. But how can we correct problems in our election system given the Democrat Party's electoral "family recipe"?