They Want to Make Voting Harder?
One of the most promising recent trends in expanding political participation has been allowing people to vote in the weeks before Election Day, either in person or by mail. Early voting, which enables people to skip long lines and vote at more convenient times, has been increasingly popular over the last 15 years. It skyrocketed to a third of the vote in 2008, rising particularly in the South and among black voters supporting Barack Obama.
And that, of course, is why Republican lawmakers in the South are trying desperately to cut it back. Two states in the region have already reduced early-voting periods, and lawmakers in others are considering doing so. It is the latest element of a well-coordinated effort by Republican state legislators across the country to disenfranchise voters who tend to support Democrats, particularly minorities and young people.
The biggest part of that effort, imposing cumbersome requirements that voters have a government ID, has been painted as a response to voter fraud, an essentially nonexistent problem. But Republican lawmakers also have taken a good look at voting patterns, realized that early voting might have played a role in Mr. Obama’s 2008 victory, and now want to reduce that possibility in 2012.
Mr. Obama won North Carolina, for example, by less than 15,000 votes. That state has had early voting since 2000, and in 2008, more ballots were cast before Election Day than on it. Mr. Obama won those early votes by a comfortable margin. So it is no coincidence that the North Carolina House passed a measure — along party lines — that would cut the early voting period by a week, reducing it to a week and a half before the election. The Senate is preparing a similar bill, which we hope Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat, will veto if it reaches her.
Republicans said the measure would save money, a claim as phony as saying widespread fraud necessitates ID cards. The North Carolina elections board, and many county boards, said it would actually cost more money, because they would have to open more voting sites and have less flexibility allocating staff members. Black lawmakers called it what it is: a modern whiff of Jim Crow.
More than half of the state’s black votes were cast before Election Day, compared with 40 percent of the white votes. A similar trend was evident elsewhere in the South, according to studies by the Early Voting Information Center, a nonpartisan academic center at Reed College in Oregon. Blacks voting early in the South jumped from about 13 percent in 2004 to 33 percent in 2008, according to the studies, significantly outpacing the percentage of whites.
One of the biggest jumps was in Georgia, where, over the objections of several black lawmakers, the Republican-dominated Legislature passed a bill in April that would cut back in-person early voting to 21 days, from 45 days. Florida just cut its early voting period to eight days, from 14. Florida also eliminated the Sunday before Election Day as an early-voting day; election experts note that will eliminate the practice of many African-Americans of voting directly after going to church.
Outside the region, the Republican-dominated Legislature in Ohio, a perennial battleground state, is about to restrict early voting, a move that Democrats say amounts to voter suppression and discrimination.
Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia now allow some form of early voting, a relic from the days when everyone seemed to agree that more voters were better for democracy. Republicans have recently decided that a larger electorate can hurt them.
No Time to Let Up on the Fight
The battle to slow the global AIDS epidemic has made astonishing progress over the past decade, especially in countries whose survival as functioning societies had once seemed threatened. The question is whether the momentum can be maintained at a time when donations are falling, the need for treatment is rising, and research suggests that with sufficient resources the epidemic could be stopped in its tracks.
A report issued on Friday by the United Nations AIDS agency, Unaids, noted that thanks to a vigorous effort by donor nations and international organizations, the global annual rate of new cases of H.I.V. dropped by 25 percent over the last decade. AIDS-related deaths have declined, and some 6.6 million people in low- and middle-income countries were being treated with antiretroviral drugs at the end of 2010. For them, AIDS is no longer a death sentence. Most are likely to live near-normal lives.
But an even larger number of people in those countries, some nine million, qualified for treatment but were unable to get it, usually because there was not enough money to buy the drugs or set up clinics and train personnel to deliver the medicines. Almost $16 billion was spent to fight the epidemic in low- and middle-income countries in 2009, but at least $22 billion a year is needed by 2015. In 2009 and 2010, disbursements by donor nations declined.
Beyond the need to treat millions of people whose immune systems are weak enough to qualify for care right now lies the exciting prospect that the epidemic could be stopped if all of the estimated 34 million people infected with the virus could be treated. A pivotal study found that if an infected person was treated with drugs immediately, the risk of transmission to an uninfected partner was cut by 96 percent. The upfront costs of treating everyone would be huge, but in the long run it could well save money by greatly reducing the number of people who become infected and need treatment.
In recent years, the United States and other far-sighted donors have worked to build up the health-care systems in afflicted countries, push governments to assume more responsibility for fighting their own epidemics, and cut costs with common-sense reforms like using generic drugs, shipping by land and sea, and pooling purchases.
The United Nations will hold a high-level meeting this week to chart a course of action for coming years. It needs to press donor countries, and those with high infection rates, to do more, not less, for this life-or-death fight.
Stopping Fraud at Trade Schools
New York State needs to do a better job of regulating the for-profit trade school industry, which is increasingly known for deceptive practices and saddling students with debt while providing them little in return.
As a good first step, the Legislature should promptly pass a bill that broadens the state Department of Education’s enforcement authority over the hundreds of for-profit trade schools in New York. While most abide by the state licensing law, some appear to be flouting it, along with rules that require state approval of their curriculums. Officials say a rash of suspect schools has sprung up in New York City to exploit immigrants and the unemployed, who are desperate to learn new skills.
In one case, city officials say, students who paid to attend a truck-driving school spent the entire course in the classroom and were never taught to drive. At other schools, students say they were promised jobs or business contacts that never materialized.
The New York State attorney general’s office is currently investigating allegations of illegal business practices at several for-profit education companies, including one founded by Donald Trump. The Education Department’s inability to properly monitor the industry stems in part from underfinancing of the enforcement division, which runs entirely on school application fees. The pending bill would fix that problem by raising the fee from a paltry $250 to $5,000. Fines for violating the licensing law would also increase.
The for-profit schools are sometimes poorly financed, which means they go broke before the students complete their courses of study. The bill would try to deal with this problem by requiring the schools to prove financial viability and by making it easier for students to recover their tuition from schools that abruptly shut down.
Reputable for-profit schools should support this bill to show that they are committed to cleaning up a troubled industry. People who want new skills need the Legislature to do more to protect them from rip-offs and exploitation.
We Call That a Big Tent
If you drew up the specs for a commerce secretary, John Bryson would seem to fit the bill. Mr. Bryson, president Obama’s nominee, brings a distinguished career as a businessman, public servant and environmentalist. This is just the résumé for someone whose department is tasked with expanding exports, managing the census, monitoring the atmosphere and protecting America’s ocean waters.
Mr. Bryson — a former chairman of Edison International, a Southern California utility, and a founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council — has already received a wide range of endorsements. Supporters include the Center for American Progress, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other advocacy groups, and the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the main utility industry group, the Edison Electric Institute.
Yet Senator James Inhofe and Representative Darrell Issa, both Republicans, have vowed to oppose him. Mr. Inhofe says Mr. Bryson is sure to be a tool of President Obama’s “job-killing” environmental agenda. Mr. Issa calls him a dangerous “green evangelist.”
There is much work to be done at Commerce. China has jumped ahead on alternative energy; Mr. Bryson invested heavily in wind and solar power at Edison. Another priority: The department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is largely responsible for monitoring the health of the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill.
We look forward to Mr. Bryson’s confirmation hearing, and urge the Senate not to delay. From all we know right now, he looks like the right businessman-environmentalist for the job.
