There are a lot of partisan political issues out there, but election integrity shouldn't be one of them.

What could be more basic to the very concept of representative government than having citizens trust

than an election, whether it be for president or dog catcher, was fairly one or fairly lost?

Yet in the recent past, this issue has become very contentious.

For purposes of our discussion here, let's put aside any feelings we might have regarding a specific election.

Here's the conflict.

One side is primarily concerned that all votes are legitimately cast, that is, each vote can be traced to the person voting.

The other side is primarily concerned that as many people as possible have the opportunity to vote.

Now a very obvious question arises, why are these two concerns incompatible? Well, the answer is they are not.

We should be able to both verify voters and make it easy to vote at the same time.

Yes, even in politics, it should be possible to walk and chew gum simultaneously.

Let's look to see how Georgia, where there has been much controversy over voting, has addressed this issue.

First concern, voter ID.

The recent Georgia voter reform law requires voters to provide an ID to receive an absentee ballot.

Since 2008, the state has required a voter to show a government issued photo ID when he or she votes in person.

To require the same level of security for absentee voting seems to make perfect sense.

In fact, one wonders why this wasn't addressed sooner.

There's simply no good evidence of possessing an ID presents a hardship to voting.

Have you ever met anyone who didn't have an ID? Anyone?

When a federal judge threw out the ACLU led lawsuit against Georgia's in-person voter ID law, he noted that in two years of litigation,

the challengers could not produce a single resident of the state unable to vote because of the new ID requirement.

But wait, as they say in TV ads, there's more.

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