Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum don’t know why we vote on Tuesday. Mitt Romney thinks good candidates will increase voter turnout. And Michele Bachmann stands on an apple box when speaking at the podium. Those are a few things I learned after three days on the ground in Iowa, home of our first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses.

On January 3rd, voters in Iowa will start the nominating process for the Republican presidential nominee and in all likelihood, voter participation will not be good. It hasn’t been for the last fifty-plus years, and all indications are that isn’t going to be any better this time around.

Making matters worse, new obstacles to casting a ballot across the nation are so bad Attorney General Eric Holder spoke up last week with a major address at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. His message: nearly half a century after LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act, our right to vote is in jeopardy.

How will our presidential candidates protect our right to vote? Now seemed as good a time as ever to bring this vital question to the 2012 candidates campaigning in Iowa, so we teamed up with Participant Media’s TakePart, and that’s exactly what we did. (more…)

Posted in Election 2012 | 1 Comment »

Our co-founder and resident scholar Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute appeared with legendary political journalist Jeff Greenfield on the PBS series Need To Know last week to discuss “Making Congress Work.” They were joined by Mickey Edwards, the former Republican Congressman from Oklahoma and Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee.

Laura LeBlanc at PBS provides context for this conversation:

Congress has never been very popular, but its public image is currently at a historic low. Recent approval ratings for the first branch of government range from only 9 to 13 percent, depending on whom you ask, and frustration is coming from both sides of the political aisle… As a body, Congress is more polarized than ever.

Amongst all of the topics discussed in their nearly 20-minute chat was how to raise voter participation. Norm suggested mandatory voting and also Weekend Voting, as you might suspect. The discussion of voter participation starts at the 8-minute mark. (more…)

Posted in Election 2012, Election Reform | 1 Comment »

Yes, indeed, I did quote Chris Rock yesterday on MSNBC when talking about our efforts to making voting as accessible, convenient and reliable for all Americans. I spoke with host Thomas Roberts about the Weekend Voting Act and ways the franchise is being restricted this election cycle.

Thomas kicked off our chat with an important question:

Why have the rules around this vote not changed and stuck around so long as modern day society has obviously advanced from having to worry about our harvest and leaving from home on a Sunday night to get somewhere by Tuesday?

To find out my answer, watch the video. (more…)

Posted in Chris Rock, Election 2012, Weekend voting | 1 Comment »

Less than a month ago I was in Phoenix talking about the work we do to make voting easier for all Americans at TEDxPhoenix. Yesterday I made a return engagement, via satellite, to talk with Pat McReynolds on Phoenix’s CBS 5 all about our movement. I couldn’t have introduced the segment any better than Pat did:

Have you ever wondered why we vote on the first Tuesday in November? Well, the answer may be an interesting historical fact but it doesn’t make a lot of sense in modern day society.

Pat asked me about why elected officials haven’t been receptive to moving Election Day to the weekend, the role apathy plays in low voter turnout, and more. Watch the video to check out our complete conversation. (more…)

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I was at the CBS News Broadcast Center in New York last week to talk about our push to move Election Day to Saturday and Sunday to increase turnout. I sat down with senior political reporter Brian Montopoli and told him why we think it’s time to upgrade our voting system.

In 2011, coming onto 2012, we will be voting on a day and in a way that was set for an agrarian society 160-something years ago. Frankly it literally is just silly that we’re still voting on this day when so many Americans are working two jobs, don’t necessarily have time to make it to the polls before or after work.

Watch the complete interview and let us know what you think. (more…)

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I stopped by the Los Angeles studio of What’s Trending, when else, this Tuesday, to talk with host Shira Lazar about who we are and what we do. The video of my appearance below. Douglas Sarine recaps my visit:

With the 2012 presidential race revving up, What’s Trending asked Jacob Soboroff of Why Tuesday to stop by the studio and a talk about the state of politics online.

We started off by finding out a bit more about the Why Tuesday organization and their goal. “I think that eventually, we might be able to move election day to the weekend, so more people can vote,” Soboroff suggested. (more…)

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