You hear a lot about voter apathy and lack of responsibility. The young, the poor, the black the brown -- they just don't turn out to vote. You've heard the tut-tutting before.

In a country in which voting is not a right but a hurdle race, it's rich to blame the vulnerable for failing to make the bar. Unlike most advanced democracies, the right to vote in the USA isn't automatic: You have to prove yourself -- register, register right, and often, and every time you move or change your name.

Instead of a single entity, voting is overseen by some 13,000 different election administrations, in fifty states, overseeing 4,600 different systems, and every means to manipulate the vote is there.

In the 1800s it was the working class and Irish immigrants who were kept out by special registration rules and sunset laws that closed polling booths before factories let out. From sunset laws to Jim Crow, felon disenfranchisement and monolingual ballots and just this month, the decision by the Department of Veterans' Affairs to bar voter registration drives at VA hospitals.

Democrats, first and foremost, should be screaming from the rafters. Young people, immigrants, Jim Crow survivors, people who relocate often for work... Like it or not, the voters on whom that party depends are the very ones whose grasp on the franchise is weakest -- and the very ones whose rights are violated the most. How about a campaign pledge to institue a new uniform VOTING RIGHTS Law -- and an automatic universal voting card at age 18? Why not? As I said, Democrats should be screaming from the rafters. Do you hear screaming? As things stand, it's not amazing how many people stay home, what's amazing is how many manage to vote at all.

The F Word is a daily commentary by Laura Flanders.