Sat, May 17 2008
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Published May 09, 2008 02:54 pm - In the name of fighting voter fraud (a phenomenon that is much talked about but seen about as often as Sasquatch), Indiana Republicans have fashioned the most arduous voter identification process in the 50 states. Column: There’s something happenin’ here What it is ain’t exactly clear By Stephanie Salter THE TRIBUNE STAR (TERRE HAUTE, Ind.) TERRE HAUTE, Ind — Tuesday's impressive turnout at Indiana polls was a textbook good news/bad news equation.
The good, of course, was that hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers made time on a weekday to get to their official polling place and cast a ballot. Added to the hundreds of thousands of Indiana residents who already voted at satellite centers or via absentee ballot, participation may have been unprecedented for a primary — and bumping up against some general elections of late. The bad news: It took a hotly contested Democratic presidential race to set a fire under Hoosiers and get them engaged in a process that occurs regularly, that deeply affects our lives, but which we’ve been blowing off at an increasing rate. Not that we are alone. Entire books, college courses and political strategy seminars exist to address the reasons so many of the freest folks in the world treat voting as if it were an unpleasant, expensive chore to be avoided — like a root canal — rather than a perk of citizenship that people have died trying to attain. Theories abound. Free equals worthless — In a consumerist society where high social status and power come with the acquisition and exhibition of expensive things, who values what costs nothing? If the schlub who drives a 20-year-old car and lives in a run-down neighborhood can have the same privilege as the oil company executive who commutes by limo from a gated community, what sort of “privilege” is that? 
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