George Knapp on fair elections

Election reform shouldn't be a partisan concern

An impressive column by Knapp, particularly seeing as how it's so ambitious: it veers from the Ukrainian elections to Washington to Ohio and finally back home to Nevada. I'm afraid that I expect voting shenanigans to continue, however. Democrats have little incentive to tamper with the voting process; they know that the more people who vote (and the more votes that are counted), the better they generally do. That leaves the Republicans...

Also in this week's Mercury: Geoff Schumacher delivers an entirely appropriate rant about Governor Guinn's proposed $300 payoff... I mean, tax rebate. I completely agree with Schumacher, even though I'm glad the Packers got whupped. The rebate proposal is manifestly unfair, a handout that overwhelmingly benefits those who are driving new cars and those well-heeled enough to have several vehicles. (See John L. Smith's Tuesday column for more on this.) The appropriate response would be to use the money to patch some of the many holes in state infrastructure and services, and then to scale back the parts of the last tax increase that produced this windfall.