Read my lips, or rather, my post. I don't think I said anything about
throwing away registrations. Did I?
In response to the report of an incident where a Repbulican operative set up a
voter registration booth, allowed people to register, (or believe they had
registered), and then discarded all the applications for registration that did
not have "Republican" checked as political preference, you said:
Why should Republicans try to register those who plan to vote for
Kerry?
Did you not?
Is somebody faking your handle, just like HK's?
If not, then you were certainly willing to overlook the practice, if not
actually excusing or condoning it.
To directly answer your question:
Why should Republicans try to register those who plan to vote for
Kerry?
It's because the election process and the government of this country is more
important than the temporary election to office of one partisan over another.
It's because when you look a fellow American in the eye and tell him you are
registering him or her as a voter, you have a moral obligation to do just
exactly that- whether they seem likely to agree with your personal politics or
not.
Registrars are a deputized extension of the government itself.
Imagine your house catches fire. You call the fire station. The dispatcher
asks, "For whom did you vote in the last election?" and you answer "George
Bush."
"I'm terrribly sorry, Mr. Herring, but the majority of our firefighters here
supported President Kerry last November. Let me give you the number of a fire
station that's only about another ten or fifteen miles away, I understand that
they are more of a Republican fire crew and they will probably agree to roll an
engine out to your fire and save what's left of your house when they finally
get there."
Would you find that acceptable?
It's no more acceptable to perform the government service of registering
voters, and then secretly subvert the processing of registrations for voters
with different political preference.
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