One Million New Voters Register

Much of the news on the voting rights has been scary in recent months. Nearly 20 states have passed laws to complicate the voting process in 2012--the most common tactic adding tougher voter ID requirements. The targets of these laws, pushed almost exclusively by the GOP (but some Democrats as well), have been people thought to be core Obama supporters from 2008: women, low-income people, college students and elderly Americans. 

Well, in five key presidential battleground states since 2007, state public assistance agencies have been prodded (sued and beaten in federal court) into offering the opportunity to register to vote to eligible voters seeking welfare benefits. They are supposed to do that under the federal moter-voter law, but in too many states that has been ignored and the Justice Department has done little about it. One of the groups that has been at the forefront of those legal efforts -- Demos -- just noted on their website that more than 1 million poor people have registered following legal settlements in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Virginia and North Carolina.

It is another question whether those new voters will vote in 2012. But for now, this is progress and good news. Read more.