Regarding undervotes, voters can always check to make sure they have clearly punched holes. Furthermore, they have a right ? and are often right to exercise the right ? to undervote by skipping certain choices on the ballot.
In some Florida jurisdictions this year, electronic touch-screen voting machines will react irritably to undervotes. If a voter skips a choice on the ballot, a message ? e.g., "You have not made a choice on this race" ? appears on the screen three times. What more must be done to deal with the undervote problem ? which often is not a problem but a sensible preference?
Should there be more severe prompts? The first might be: "I'm just a machine, but shouldn't you be marking more boxes?" The second might be: "Hey, dolt ? yes, you: The right to vote is precious, so even though you neither know nor care about a particular contest on the ballot, vote for someone ? anyone ? even if your vote is random." Finally, the machine could threaten: "Cast more votes or you will wake up with a horse's head in your bed."
Would such growls from voting machines satisfy liberals that an undervote need not represent either a remediable flaw in the voter or in the technology? Can liberals accept that an undervote usually reflects either voter carelessness, for which the voter suffers the condign punishment of an unrecorded preference, or reflects the voter's choice not to express a preference? No, otherwise they would not be liberals: obsessive about rights, blind to responsibilities.
On Monday a Colorado judge upheld a new requirement that voters are responsible for producing identification before being allowed to vote. And Florida's Supreme Court rejected the argument that voters are disenfranchised when provisional ballots they cast in the wrong precincts are not counted.
Imagine that: Voters are responsible for proving who they are and knowing where they are supposed to vote. There will be charges that both rulings permit "intimidation," which in today's liberal lexicon is a synonym for linking rights to responsibilities.