In Selma, Ala., on Sunday, I joined thousands of citizens marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, marking the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the 1965 march and police riot that helped spark the passage of the Voting Rights Act.


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Photo ID laws have been introduced or passed in at least 15 states. They discriminate against those who don't have driver's licenses -- disproportionately poor, elderly and minorities. Nationally they could disenfranchise about 5 million voters. Several states are also pushing legislation to restrict voter registration and to limit early voting.

Republicans argue that the voting laws are needed to counter fraudulent voting. But they have produced zero evidence of organized efforts to tip elections with fraudulent voters. The laws, as noted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the march organizers, are a "solution looking for a problem."

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Worse, it means that one of America's two major parties is increasingly devoted to finding ways to limit the vote rather than expand it. In fact, what we ought to have is a competition on how to ensure that every citizen can cast his or her vote easily. Automatic registration on birth, early voting, extended voting days, polls that are open on weekends and before and after work days -- we should be having a competition on how to increase the vote, not on how to suppress it.