More on Romney's voting status

A couple of posts down, we took belated note of the controversy over whether or not Mitt Romney was an actual resident of Massachusetts when he voted in that state in early 2010. The previous year, he had moved his family to La Jolla, California. Yet Mitt claims that he was living in MA, in his son's unfinished basement, no doubt scarfin' Doritos and watching reruns of Classic Trek.

It turns out that someone has asked an MA voting official whether Romney was qualified to cast a ballot in 2010. The reply was very interesting...

Cushman noted that as long as Romney isn't trespassing in someone's home and hasn't requested to become a resident of another town anywhere else in the country, he is considered a resident of Belmont...

"And since he is an active voter, he proves that this is where his residency is," said Cushman.

Okay. So it seems that the fact that he has voted there before is sufficient to prove that he had a right to vote in 2010. Even though he had moved to California. And even his long-sought tax returns almost certainly show a California address.

That seems like circular reasoning: "Of course he's legally allowed to vote here. He's voting here, isn't he?"

But my question is this: What about the people in Philadelphia and other states where the GOP is trying to squelch the votes of blacks and students and the poor? Can those people be grandfathered in due to their status as long-time "active voters"?

Seems to me that we have two standards...