If Ray Nagin wants to make himself useful

He could use his unlikely story about how the vote he claims to have possibly cast in the Oct 20 Gubernatorial primary has mysteriously disappeared from the record to call under greater scrutiny the Sec. of State's current plan for a massive voter purge based on... inactivity.

This week, the Sec of State's office provided a list of the names and last known addresses of inactive voters (those who have missed the last two federal election cycles) in 1st Congressional District to the Times-Picayune. The paper published this information in the Tuesday edition in what has to be a borderline violation of these individuals' privacy. Those voters who do not update their addresses might be taken off he rolls before the special election to replace PBJ after his inauguration as Governor.

Purging voter rolls is a serious business which, while necessary from a housekeeping standpoint from time to time, can be tool of abuse and disenfranchisement. For example, a highly questionable partisan voter purge in Florida prior to the 2000 Presidential election contributed to the questionable circumstances under which George W Bush was appointed to office. It is obvious, therefore, that these undertakings must occur under the heaviest of scrutiny.

One way to ensure that the Louisiana purge now sleepily underway is watched a bit more carefully would be for someone to question the reliability of the State's voter participation data. Ray Nagin's fanciful story could do something like that if he presses the issue. If Nagin truly believes his vote was not recorded, that's a serious problem, a problem that we might expect him to raise more than the casual stink over, a problem that we could reasonably expect not to be an isolated incident, a problem that might merit investigation.

But perhaps it's asking a bit much of the Mayor to recognize that an issue like this might not simply be all about him. That is if he isn't just full of shit in the first place which he most likely is. In that case then we can expect to see him go through his usual routine of feigning a momentary half-indignation lapsing into vague sarcasm before letting the matter drop altogether.

Of course, he's far more likely to be on to his next nutty endeavor within a week anyway... at which point we will have forgotten all about this. Hopefully the new Republican Secretary of State will behave responsibly with the voter rolls in the meantime.