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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1992-09-24
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THE WEEK, Page 29NATIONDead in the Driveway?
A House bill on voter registration faces a certain, if awkward,
veto
Less than a week after George Bush stopped briefly in Panama
to herald "the rising tide of democracy across the Americas," the
House of Representatives approved a plan sponsored by Democrats
to simplify voter registration across the nation -- just in time
for the fall election. The so-called motor-voter bill would
require states to make it possible to register by mail, at a
variety of public buildings and bureaus, and when applying for a
driver's permit. But the 268-to-153 vote fell well short of the
two-thirds majority needed to override an all but certain
presidential veto. "Motor-voter," said top White House lobbyist
Nick Calio, "is dead in the driveway."
Bush says he opposes the measure, which would supersede a
patchwork of similar laws already on the books in 30 states,
because he believes its looser registration requirements would
lead to voter fraud. Less advertised but no less important is
the White House's reluctance to boost voter turnout in a year
when outsider Ross Perot has scrambled the Electoral College
math and the throw-the-bums-out mood has reached epidemic
proportion.
Just how much of Perot's support might come from new
voters? Not even Bush's top advisers know for sure. For now,
they say, Perot is drawing votes almost exclusively from the
ranks of disaffected, but largely registered, Democrats and
Republicans -- not the disenfranchised. But that could change,
and if it does, the White House isn't keen to make registration
simpler.
Democrats charged that Bush's opposition to the House bill
and a similar Senate version stems from fears that more new
Democrats will register than new Republicans, and pointed with
indignant alarm to statistics showing that only 36% of the adult
population voted in 1990 elections -- a situation that may have
as much to do with disillusionment with endless Washington
politicking as with obstacles to registration.