I suppose it is only natural that within the effort to gut the Voting Rights Act — one of the most successful pieces of legislation in history — there is an agenda to eliminate voting rights entirely — well for one type of voter.

I’m just an old guy, but I remember when high voter turnout was something that a state was proud of.

Absentee ballots are increasingly being used throughout the United States. They are especially popular in the West Coast; elections are entirely absentee-ballot in Oregon and Washington, for instance.

The general reasoning behind absentee ballots are that they increase voter turn-out. The theory goes that voters too busy on election day can vote before the election. Absentee ballots make voting simpler, people say. If it is true that absentee ballots increase voter turn-out, then this would be a substantial advantage.

There is another great advantage to absentee ballots, however. Absentee ballots enable voters to make informed decisions, especially about local elections and measures which nobody has heard of.

Dear Dan,

You and I are getting ready to tape a debate on the question of whether to vote for Obama (in “swing states”). It will air on Lila Garrett’s “Connect the Dots” show on KPFK next Monday. I’m looking forward to it, if for no other reason, because I think our public discourse lacks much serious debate between people who respect each other’s intentions. I have nothing but respect for you and believe you mean nothing but the best in advocating votes for Obama. You honestly believe I was catastrophically wrong to vote for Jill Stein in Virginia, as I’ve done, and I honestly believe you are horrendously misguided to be expending your valuable energy trying to get others to vote for Obama. And yet we’ll be friends through this and regardless of whether one or both of us ever change our minds.

When I was a philosophy grad student in the ancient times at the U. of Virginia, some over-smart logician pointed out to me that voting is not rational, since a single vote is never decisive. It’s all the other stuff that’s rational: appearing to have voted, applying a sticker to your bumper, registering voters, making phone calls — because all of that stuff has the potential to spread sufficiently to make a difference in the election, or perhaps in a future election or in other forms of civic engagement.

But, of course, unlike the model “persons” in philosophical or economic mental experiments, actual people tend not to be sociopaths. Pretending to vote without voting is far more work than actually voting, which — while it may be irrational — does no harm. And so, good citizens tend to vote even understanding its irrationality, and even when there are no candidates worth voting for.

The important message here is please VOTE. Regardless of what you think about the top of the ticket, there are essential races downticket in many states for Governor, Lt. Gov, state house races, judicial races and other offices that will profoundly affect your day-to-day quality of life and civil rights.

Here’s an easy way to spoil a vote: digitize it . . . then lose the digits.

Prestidigitation is the French-derived term for conjury, legerdemain, sleight-of-hand, presto-change-o hand-jive, disappearing trickery . . . or, in the language of Karl Rove, “Helping America Vote.”

It’s that time of election season when the mere thought of politics turns the stomach, and few of us can stand any more of the yammering that we call campaigns, so we turn to navel gazing. You probably saw Conor Friersdorf on “How shall I use my precious vote”, and the pontificating that followed. I think that blows out my earlier entry in that category, here. Matt Taibbi looks like a lock in the incompetent Democrats category and the role of the media in these stupid campaigns category. So, I going to enter the What Does It All Mean category.

A variety of links to articles/interviews/speeches/videos on current issues that may be of interest.

Word is starting to get around in Minnesota of the horrific costs and problems faced by local governments whose states enact the various ALEC-inspired “Voter ID” photo ID legislative disasters. And Minnesota Republicans, who are trying to sneak the Minnesota version of Voter ID to the voters as a ballot measure, are freaked out about it.