Voting line in Jersey City via mudpig.

One cannot have watched the folks all across the nation, standing in line to cast their ballots for the last few weeks from the start of early voting through the last ballot at the close yesterday without a bit of a smile. And some understanding of the genius of national renewal in each election of the "for the people, by the people" mandate on which this nation has run since its Founding.

However, anyone think after the overwhelming turn-out numbers and voting participation across the country that the voter suppression tactics of the GOP are now a bygone era remnant? A little reminder of the Hans Von Spakovsky anti-voter access trial balloon from September:

...The most important lesson of Greene County is that absentee ballots are extremely vulnerable to voter fraud. The case shows how absentee ballot fraud really works, and it is a reality very different from the claims of partisans and advocacy groups. More broadly, the case shows how voter fraud threatens the right to free and fair elections and how those most often harmed are poor and minorities. This directly rebuts the usual partisan conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

Anyone else see an attack on absentee ballots as analogous to early voting in general. Because longer lines and more difficulty therefore casting a ballot means fewer voters overall. Meaning the vote is easier to game and control.

I fear that yesterday's orchestrated Philly hysterics were but a prelude for the next wave.

But now that so many among the American public have gotten a taste of active participation in voting? What say we push it forward: active participation in government by holding elected officials to account on making voter participation an even more sacred, more logical and more protected right? Instead of looking for ways to cut people out of their rightful vote, what say we work all the harder to keep them interested in voting every election cycle?

If elected officials across the country know what is good for them, and if the more engaged voters have really woken up to the reality that we all get the government that we all work for -- then let's try working together for a change instead of allowing a few self-interested bad apples game the system to to restrict what Americans have a legal right to: casting a lawful ballot.

We must demand better, more accurate voting. It's essential for the health of the democracy.

But, more than that, we must demand that the law not be used as a cudgel to silence the less powerful. No American should have the law used as a tool to keep them in their place. And it is time that GOP operatives pimping offensive voter fraud hysteria about the few and far between actual prosecutable cases were called exactly what they are: undemocratic, manipulative tools for the lessening of us all.

If we learned nothing else from yesterday, let it be this: Americans should be encouraged at every turn to participate fully in their governance, for the good -- the whole good -- of us all.

UPDATE:  Well, that was quick.  Bob Geiger spotted the Hannity "was Obama's win legit" post a bit ago.  Sad, yet predictable, isn't it?