The Elephant in the Room.

In a positive sign for more Congressional feistiness this next term, Dems force a two-hour debate over voting irregularities in Ohio. (Unlike in 2001 — as featured in the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 — the House Dems found a Senate backer this time in Barbara Boxer. For his part, Kerry took a pass.) The GOP may chalk it up to simple sour grapes, but Congress desperately needs to talk about these issues: The American voting infrastructure was an international embarrassment in 2000 — that we had four years to solve the problem and didn’t speaks even worse of our self-appointed role as exemplars of democracy. If we can handle millions of ATM transactions every day, complete with paper trail, then surely we can do the same for millions of votes one Tuesday in November.