Unified effort necessary for voting reform

He's anything but apologetic. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush just vetoed a $100,000 voter-education measure in Florida without blinking. Surprising, huh? He could have played the prince. What's a hundred grand after all? \nMere pelican scraps. Whose idea was this "voter-education measure"? Plenty of politicians are painting themselves as seekers of a just electoral process, especially after toilet-papering it a month ago. \nKatherine Harris springs to mind as someone trying to play nice. So, logically, she proposed the voter-education measure and buried the puppy-skin Cruella De Vil coat. \nNothin' but a cheap squirt of blemish-control. It's not enough of a sum to fully admit that Jeb's brother George W.'s presidential victory emerged from an obscenely backward system. \nOne hundred thousand dollars admits only that it was just a teensie bit disorganized. Even worse, the money would be for "voter education," not ballot reform. \nNow that's cheeky: It was purely the voters' fault, the ones who couldn't coordinate drooling and operating a vote-a-matic at the same time. When Letterman said South Floridians write T.G.I.F. on their shoes to inform them that "toes go in first," Katherine Harris nodded sadly and repaired her mascara. \nIf our election mess is the result of uneducated voters, then $100,000 isn't nearly enough to teach them to read and give them vote-a-matics to practice on at home. But how much is being spent on new voting machines? Not much so far. \nUniformity in voting machines across the nation should be the goal.\nBut you should hear the partisan rumblings. The Federal Election Commission's man, William Kimberling, estimated new voting equipment in the nation's 180,000 voting precincts would cost $9 billion. And unless you count sniping and snarling, Republicans and Democrats still aren't speaking. \nSometime this week the Assembly Election Law Committee will update the findings of a 1986 bipartisan commission called the Temporary Commission of Voting Equipment and Devices. It will examine most of what the Senate is already studying about voting machine problems. \nDemocrats were shut out of the Senate election task force. Expect Congress, the new Senate and the House to each be fiercely divided over election reform. After all, it's awfully hard to solemnly swear by your daddy's 0.357 that Bush is unquestionably and paws-down the winner, so help you God, and then admit sweeping election reform is needed to the tune of billions of dollars. \nThe latest election conflicts mark an epic battle of two parties who have quarreled over everything from voter registration to absentee balloting to polling hours.\nWhy are Republicans so ardently, even valiantly, grabbing the reins of Truth after they just screeched "no! no! no!" about the recount? Why can't Democrats get in on the ballot reform "healing process" and look like good guys too?\nMeanwhile, independent of the slow federal government, dozens of states are scurrying to revamp their balloting procedures. Bill Jones, California's Republican secretary of state, has called for $230 million to spruce up voting machines in his state, and Jeb Bush created a special task force (a No Democrats Allowed club) to learn from the mess in Florida. \nWhy sacrifice consistency in all states for urgency? And what good is it for a bunch of states to each shriek for funding to update their own voting procedures? They clearly haven't reflected on the problems of last election: a nation fractured by demographics, ethnicity, income bracket and unequal funding. \nConcerns persist regarding the infringement of states' rights to supervise elections. But instituting universal voting apparatuses prevents future catastrophes and still leaves tons of sovereignty to the states. Poor counties shouldn't have to siphon funding from schools and community works to afford elections. Shouldn't our priority be to uphold democracy? \nRepublicans need to find a less counterproductive way to remake themselves.\nStates sent scurrying by political leaders repairing their image, or maybe their conscience, worsens the electoral spottiness we have. Partisan nose-tweaking fuels inefficiency. \nCongress and state governments should cooperate and defer to a uniform national system. Republican politicians like Jeb Bush, Rudolph Giuliani, Bill Jones and Asa Hutchinson must quit donning stars-and-stripes spandex suits and rocketing off on their own grandiose remedies, hoping the public forgives and forgets their dirty machination against the recount. \nAsking for hundreds of thousands of dollars for one's state will not trick the public into thinking one is genuinely committed to electoral justice. Not after the sorry sights we have seen. If these guys strike off on their own, searching for cosmetic gallantry, expect continued overuse of the word debacle. Plus, we'll be out of cash with no improvement to show.