Around here, we like to ask questions. We think Americans aren’t asking enough questions. Our advisory board member Andrea Batista Schlesinger even wrote a book about it: The Death of “Why?” – The Decline of Questioning and the Future of Democracy. We need our citizens asking questions of our elected leaders and political candidates, instead of accepting spoon-fed answers about the issues that affect our daily lives.

The biggest problem for you or me is that it’s not easy to ask tough questions to those in power. We had to run around the country to get the 2008 presidential candidates to talk to us about elections and voting. But it’s getting easier. Here’s how.

In 2008 we participated in a project called 10Questions that hand-delivered our questions to some of the presidential candidates. And they answered. Now, you have the power to use the same forum to talk with your local and national leaders in advance of the 2010 midterm elections. The Knight Foundation has funded 10Questions and a major group of media partners, including Why Tuesday?, is working to bring the forum to you. Micah Sifry of the Personal Democracy Forum was one of the early drivers of the project, and he writes that it’s quite easy to use.

The way it works is simple: anyone can post a question (video or text), anyone can vote those up or down (one vote per question per IP address), anyone can embed a question, a race, a state, or the entire country via a fully functional widget, on any website they want. To post or vote on a question, you just need a Google Account, as the site is powered by a souped-up version of the Google Moderator question platform (and for which we are grateful to our technology partners Google and YouTube.) No personal user information is being retained, though the site will allow anyone to view where questions and votes are coming from geographically, and to track the daily up-down voting on any question.

Between now and September 14, voters will have their say. Then we’ll submit the top 10 questions (minus ones that are obscene or inappropriate) to the relevant candidates, and give them until October 14 to post their replies. After that we’ll ask the public to again vote on whether they think the candidates actually answered the questions.

The 2010 midterms edition of 10Questions.com covers 43 of the most competitive races across the country, in 11 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

You have the power, and now the tool, to get answers from the powers that be. It’s easy. Start now. Use the widget below. And visit 10Questions.com to do your part to help strengthen our democracy.

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Disclaimer: This post about 10Questions.com was originally published on TechPresident.com. Why Tuesday? is a media partner of 10Questions.com. Photo of the wrong kind of voter in a driver’s seat via mopics on Flickr.

Three years ago, we had a modest idea here at Personal Democracy Forum: that the internet could be a vehicle for transforming the presidential debates then underway. Instead of relying solely on journalists to determine the questions being asked of candidates; why not involve the public? Instead of giving the candidates 60 seconds to recite a canned answer, why not offer them unlimited time to prepare a serious response? And instead of letting candidates dodge questions during live debates, why not create a real feedback loop and let the public vote on whether they were satisfied with candidates’ answers? Instead of debates tailored for (and constrained by) the demands of broadcast television, why not use the interactive and abundant nature of the internet to try something new and make debates far more participatory, content-rich, and accountable?

From that set of ideas was born 10Questions.com, a cross-partisan interactive platform for voter-candidate engagement that we are pleased to announce has been relaunched for the 2010 elections this week. (more…)

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The screen capture below shows that we really do have the power when we all stick together. Foursquare, the location-based social networking site, agreed this morning to give its users “I Voted” badges on this coming Election Day after an act.ly petition showed how broad the public support for this simple act of civic participation was.

Congrats to Foursquare, petition-starter Jordan Raynor, and act.ly creator Jim Gilliam for making a move on a truly noble cause. Now, if only we could petition the 50% of Americans who don’t vote.

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On this Election Day, the New York Times sings the United States Justice Department’s praises for enforcing the 1993 federal law known as Motor Voter, which calls for voter registration forms to be available to those applying for a drivers license.

The law also calls for registration at other governmental locations which heretofore have seemed to fly below the radar. Now, the paper says, the DOJ has begun enforcing these rules, and while it may at first appear to cynics that this enforcement benefits one political party over the other, the truth is that we all will benefit, especially given the tough economic times and highly polarized political climate.

The effort not only promises to bring hundreds of thousands of hard-to-reach voters into the electorate, but it could also reduce the impact of advocacy organizations whose role in registering voters caused such a furor in 2008.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, better known as the motor-voter law, is well-known for making it possible to register to vote at state motor vehicle offices. However, the law also required states to allow registration at offices that administer food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, disability assistance and child health programs. States were enthusiastic about the motor-vehicle section of the law, and millions of new voters got on the rolls while getting a driver’s license. But registration at public assistance offices proved far less popular.

In part, that was because of additional paperwork at those offices, but in many states, Republican officials did not want to provide easy entry to the voting rolls for low-income people whom they considered more likely to vote Democratic. The Bush administration devoted its attention to seeking out tiny examples of voter fraud and purging people from the rolls in swing states. It did little to enforce the motor-voter law despite years of complaints from civic groups and Democratic lawmakers.

In April, however, President Obama’s Justice Department sent the states a set of guidelines making it clear that it expected full compliance with the public-assistance office section of the law — the first time in the 15-year history of the motor-voter law that the Justice Department has explained what kinds of offices are covered and what procedures are to be used. The guidelines make it clear that people applying for benefits must not only be offered the chance to register but must be given help in filling out the forms if they ask. If states do not comply voluntarily, lawsuits are likely to follow.

The administration will undoubtedly be accused of acting in a self-serving political way by making it easier for more Democrats to vote. The effort may have that effect. But it is worth remembering that the recession has brought millions of new people to food stamp and other welfare offices in the last two years, many of whom may not be traditional Democrats. In addition, government offices are much more likely to provide reliable registrations than Acorn or other advocacy groups that were widely accused of fraudulent sign-ups in the last cycle. Welfare offices generally have extensive methods of verifying identities in order to provide benefits, and it is illegal to provide false records there.

But the best reason to applaud the Justice Department’s new posture is that it will bring more voters into public life. When advocacy groups sued Ohio and Missouri to force their public assistance offices into complying, huge groups of new voters surged onto the rolls — more than 100,000 in Ohio, and more than 200,000 in Missouri. Nationwide enforcement by the Justice Department could add millions more. The more people who have access to the ballot, the better the country will be.

You can find the complete editorial here.

If you’re voting today, wonder why? Here’s the answer.

Photo of market by modestospeed on Flickr.

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