The Independent View: Political Reform - A better way to count ballots

There are two new books that try to answer the "One person, One vote" question.

Who's Counting by John Fund, a veteran political journalist and a former member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page staff, and Mr. Hans von Spakovsky, a Heritage Foundation fellow who was a lawyer in the voting-rights division of the George W. bush administration.

They argue that we need more Voter I.D. laws to prevent the big problem of voter fraud. They discus all the different fraud methods and ways to prevent them. They do recommend that local boards, to prevent majority steamrolling, including an equal number of major party members and at least one nonpartisan or third-party member.

The Voting Wars by Ricard L. Hasen, the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California, takes a different approach.

Mr. Hasen is against voter I.D. laws and his solution is to make the national government responsible for enrolling every eligible American. Voters would be given as ID card that they would show before voting. They would be given at no cost when you turn 18. They would include an individual voter identification number, allowing you to be tracked and re-enrolled when you move. He calls for nonpartisan, professional election commissions. He suggests other reforms like, requiring uniform national rules for voting machines and absentee ballots.

But both books do not discuss. campaign finance reform, better ballot access for the candidates and the voters with open primaries, and better party's candidate selection process that does not require the state's voters paying for it.