Slate does a 10th anniversary article on Bush v. Gore.  It gets a little bit right, but most of it wrong.

The right part:

“Before 2000, candidates and the public were both quick to accept official election results even in close elections. Bush v. Gore taught political operatives and everyone else that there are significant problems in how we administer our elections.”

The wrong part quickly follows. The author suggests nationalizing voter registration and federalizing the process to fix poorly run elections.  As if turning anything over to the federal government tends to make things work better.  I wonder if Rick Hasen has ever gone to the U.S. Post Office to mail a 17 ounce parcel on December 22.  Thankfully only a few people in academia take seriously the idea of federalizing election adminstration, especially those who have read the Constitution.  It is a non-starter, except perhaps in the ivory tower:

“If we wanted to, we could put an end to all this fighting. We could start with a uniform national ballot and uniform rules for the casting and counting of votes in federal elections. We could nationalize voter registration or at least mandate modernization so that state voter-registration databases talk to each other.”

Maybe they can put the voter registration office in the Social Security office.  The ensuing bedlam would be a sight to see.

The wrong and preposterously hypocritical:

“We could remove partisan officials from making election decisions in which they have a vested interest (like Ken Blackwell, who served as co-chair of Bush’s 2004 Ohio re-election committee while making a series of election-law decisions as Ohio Secretary of State that seemed designed to favor Republicans).”

Really?  Ken Blackwell is the best example?  One wonders why a more recent Ohio Secretary of State’s decisions wouldn’t fall into the same category.  Current Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has a reputation of a partisan who uses the power of her office for partisan advantage.  But like so much in the world of elections, I suppose the author just doesn’t see her record the same way.  All those shady 2008 dealings, including her highly questionable list maintenance compliance, why nothing more than GOP spin, right?