Every Vote

Cameron Kerry, John Kerry's brother, has a commentary in the Boston Globe which for the first time lays out the reasons that the Kerry campaign did not more aggressively challenge the outcome of the election, especially in Ohio.

The commentary ends with a strong endorsement of electoral reform, and ends with this specific proposal:

"It is time to make vote suppression a violation of civil rights laws and adopt national standards that ensure that all voters have equal access to voting machines and ballots without the kinds of technical obstacles that call to mind Jim Crow laws. And trust in the system requires that it be transparent; whether inside local election board offices or inside the code of electronic voting machines, the counting of votes has to be public and nonpartisan."

Next time the electoral votes are tallied, every American citizen should be able to know that his or vote has counted."

Boston.com / News / Politics / Presidential candidates / Counting every vote

To which we add, it is past time to make vote suppression a violation of civil rights laws. We assume that this will be part of the legislation Senator Kerry will introduce.