Real Election Reform: A Greast Victory for the Netroots

Last week it was largely the blogosphere that brought to the surface the dirty trick of annoying robocalling that the NRCC was performing in dozens of Congressional districts nationwide. We all know the story: the robocall would start by saying "I have information about (Democratic Candidate X)," then leave a pause, and follow with a hit piece on that Democratic candidate, with the disclaimer about the call being sponsored by the NRCC coming at the very end. If the voter hung up early on the call, it would automatically call back 7 or 8 times until the call ended. If you kept hanging up, you were annoyed with what you think is the campaign for the Democratic candidate. If you listened to the end of the call, you heard a hit piece on that candidate.

I was just listening to the top of the Ed Schultz Show, and he said that, in a meeting with incoming Majority Leader Harry Reid, the pledge was given that banning robocalls will be at the top of the Democrats' agenda. This is essentially already happening at the state level, but a federal ban would of course be wide-ranging and have more teeth. I don't know how you would sidestep the free speech issue, but maybe it's a National Do Not Robocall registry to go along with the regular Do Not Call one. Automated calls like this were banned in Indiana and New Hampshire for the 2006 elections. I don't think you can find two states which did better from a Democratic perspective; one picked up 3 House seats, the other sent Democrats to the leadership of the state legislature for the first time in almost a century.

The point here is that, without the netroots jumping on this issue early, promoting it, receiving a wide range of reports throughout the country to prove that it was a national phenomenon and not a local one, the revelations about these robocalls would have only come out much later. By making this a priority during the election, and bringing it to the Democrats' attention, it inspired them to do something about it. As Stephen Burt said last week, this is a tailor-made issue to open with. It's not like anybody likes robocalls, and consumer protection always gets high marks from the consumers themselves. It's a no-lose situation.

Now, the next step is to ensure that the Holt-Wexler bill requiring a voter-verified paper trail in every election held in the country gets a full vote in both houses of Congress. Reps. Wexler and Holt claim that they have enough co-sponsors for the resolution, 218, to earn passage.

Democratic Reps. Robert Wexler of Boca Raton, Fla., and Rush Holt of New Jersey promoted legislation on Wednesday that would require a paper trail at polling places to ensure that ballots can be recounted and verified.

They said lack of a paper backup system at electronic polling places has impeded several close elections around the country, notably in Sarasota County, Fla., where more than 18,000 ballots were cast with no choice recorded in the House race in District 13.

Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan are still locked in a close contest, awaiting final results that probably will be decided by the courts. Both have come to Washington in the meantime to attend orientation sessions for new members of Congress.

It's vital that we continue to push for real electoral reform. Grassroots and netroots activists are the ones pushing for this, and they are clearly getting somewhere. It's brilliant that it's finally bubbling to the surface and getting the attention of Capitol Hill. The difference that the netroots is making is starting to show tangible results.