A modification for same-day registration

As a product of a long-gone America, I remember a relic called civics class and still remember one of its primary lessons - with citizenship come rights and responsibilities.

That early 1960s lesson came to mind as I read the media outrage and the reported complaints of the same-day register-and-vote people. All the focus was on a citizen's right to vote without mention of a citizen's responsibility to register to vote or respect for the fair rules which govern us all.

To my knowledge, during the two-year partisan election cycle, voter registration is closed shortly before and after every election, remaining open roughly 22 months of the 24-month cycle. In defiance of the concept every American is somehow an innocent victim, I would say anyone who fails to register to vote with its wide-open window and bend-over-backward ease and then complains about the burdensome voter registration laws is not acting as a responsible citizen exercising a constitutional right.

Suspending reality for the sake of discussion, let's assume same-day register-and-vote experiments were not the partisan manipulations of the electorate by the Democratic governor and General Assembly to advantage their candidates but an actual act of good government which with will extend into future election cycles. I propose the legislation be labeled the - Universal Suffrage and Procrastinators Persecution Act of 2015 - and allow same-day registration and voting only for those who have relocated to Illinois or moved from one Illinois address to another during the closed voter registration period and at one central location established by the election authority.

I wouldn't be concerned with procrastinator political backlash. They'll never find the time to complain. But, America's self appointed victim search and rescue squad will be apoplectic.

Dan Donahue

Libertyville