I know that liberals and conservatives often have different priorities on voting rights issues - a conflict of visions if you will to borrow Thomas Sowell's phrase.
Liberals tend to see anything that increases voter turnout is a positive for a democracy, giving short shrift to concerns about ballot security. Conservatives often emphasize the rule of law and the fact that if procedures aren't followed not every ballot is a valid vote. That can sometimes lead them to forget the forest for the trees.
But what both sides should agree on is that nothing good comes of wild charges. Indeed, damage is done to worthy causes by having the voting rights field occupied by demagogues. I hope Huffington Post readers look at this piece of mine in today's Wall Street Journal in that spirit. I quote Juan Williams, Andrew Young and Joe Andrew, Bill Clinton's hand-picked chairman of the DNC, as expressing concern that some of the rhetoric surrounding this month's celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act hasn't moved us closer to a sensible consensus. I believe we should make it easy to vote and tough to cheat. And I think we can accomplish both goals at the same time.