Lose your home, and your vote?

The New York Times — still the best newspaper in the country, by a mile — ran an interesting story the other day. Election officials and voting-rights groups are worried that many of the millions of U.S. homeowners who lost their residences to foreclosure will also lose their chance to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

You can read the story here.  It’s yet another example of how the housing mess has impacted so much of life in the United States.

Basically, a large number of foreclosure victims failed to tell their election board of their new address.  This is understandable: When you’re losing your home, your thoughts tend to focus first on your family’s wellbeing and your overall financial health.

Here’s my hope: Democrats and Republicans work together to make sure everyone — even those who’ve gotten lost in the shuffle as they’ve battled foreclosure — gets the right to work. What I fear will happen is that this, as everything seems to do in this country lately, will turn into a Democrats vs. Republicans issue. Let’s be honest, a majority of the people who’ve lost their homes are probably leaning toward voting Democratic. (Notice I said “majority.” I’m sure there are many, many exceptions.) Let’s hope there isn’t an effort to keep these voters silent in an extremely close presidential race.