Call it plain ol' self-interest if you want, but I think the Dems got burned badly enough in 2000 and 2002 that they realize a more transparent, honest voting system is their only real shot at ever being anything but a minority party again. Big business is MORE tied to the Republicans than to the Democrats, and the TV and Radio media are now "liberal" only in the sense of hawking sex and drugs and giving lip service to "political correctness." (The media do not advocate for environmental causes, smaller government, reproductive "choice," education reform, gun control, or against capital punishment, repressive sentencing laws, etc.)

The Dems also know that generally the poor, the under-educated, the under-employed and racial minorities (except maybe Asians) tend to support them. Taking steps to ensure that inner-city voters, native Americans on reservations, etc., have as easy access to voting as suburbanites and rural America do is clearly to the Democrats' advantage.

If the Democrats, as a whole, thought having untestable e-voting and vote counting by private corporations would usually help them steal elections, I have little doubt they'd fight the reforms as much as the Republicans are doing now. LBJ and Richard Daly certainly did their share of ballot box stuffing back in the day. But times have changed.

I think the majority of our representatives on BOTH (ALL) sides of the aisle favor real election form.   All it takes, unfortunately, is the committee chairmen to keep the issue from coming up for a vote, and ever since 1995, those chairmanships have been Republican.

Genie