Yesterday President Barack Obama held a first-of-its-kind Presidential Google+ Hangout from the Roosevelt Room in the White House, answering questions from everyday Americans submitted through YouTube and posed live to him in a cool back-and-forth video chat.

We submitted a question, asking President Obama if he’d support moving Election Day to the weekend to increase America’s historically terrible voter participation. Our submission was endorsed by, amongst hundreds of others, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, U.S. Representative Steve Israel, and Why Tuesday? advisory board member Meghan McCain.

As the forum began a short clip from the question we recorded came on screen during the intro video, and you saw and heard me ask:

Why do we vote on Tuesday?

It was an exciting start to the forum, and some online noticed this, and tweeted as much. (more…)

Posted in Barack Obama, Election 2012, YouTube | No Comments »

UPDATE — 1/30/12: The Google+ Hangout with President Obama will take place today at 5:30ET. Our question (both the combined video question and text question) received hundreds of votes, and scores of similar questions were submitted. Incidentally, a question about making Election Day a national holiday to increase American voter turnout is one of the top voted questions on the White House’s very own petition site We The People, with over 11,000 votes as of this posting.

January 30th President Obama will be a part of a first-of-its-kind online forum where he’ll answer questions, live in a Google+ Hangout, from everyday Americans. We’ve submitted a question, asking the President to support moving Election Day to the weekend to increase America’s historically terrible voter turnout. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Why Tuesday? advisory board member Meghan McCain and U.S. Representative Steve Israel, the sponsor of the Weekend Voting Act, have tweeted their support for our question, and we want you to join them. (more…)

Posted in Barack Obama, Election 2012, Weekend voting | 1 Comment »

It will come as no surprise we’re pretty thrilled to wake up to the news that the voters of South Carolina cast ballots in record numbers in their GOP primary yesterday… on a Saturday. According to the vice chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, that’s exactly why they moved Election Day to the weekend.

“We’re just trying to increase participation in the primary,” he said. “We believe in South Carolina that we pick presidents. And on a day that you pick presidents, you want to have as many people as possible voting.”

Granted, 21% of registered voters isn’t something to write home about, but it’s a start. Here’s our question: now that he’s won big in South Carolina on a Saturday, will Newt Gingrich reconsider his opposition to weekend voting? (more…)

Posted in Election 2012, Newt | No Comments »

Our chairman and co-founder Ambassador Andrew Young gave the 13th annual MLK Jr. Lecture tonight at the University of North Carolina on the occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Ambassador Young fought alongside Dr. King for Civil Rights and it is in his memory and spirit our organization was founded in 2005.

“We’re pleased to bring to Carolina someone who as a young leader marched side-by-side with Dr. King and rose through the ranks of the social justice and civil rights movements and beyond,” said Terri Houston, the university’s interim chief diversity officer, about Ambassador Young’s speech.

Ambassador Young discussed our efforts to increase voter participation at the event, which was live tweeted by reesenews, “a digital news publication powered by students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication.” What follows are a collection of tweets before and during Ambassador Young’s question and answer session with Jack Boger, dean and Wade Edwards Distinguished Professor in the School of Law, and UNC senior Amber Koonce. (more…)

Posted in Ambassador Andrew Young, Chris Rock, North Carolina | No Comments »

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study last week assessing costs and benefits of holding Election Day on the weekend instead of Tuesday, as is called for in the Weekend Voting Act. The study, as CBS News points out, was unfortunately but not surprisingly inconclusive:

“Since nationwide federal elections have never been held on a weekend, it is difficult to draw valid conclusions about how moving federal elections to a weekend would affect voter turnout,” the GAO report said.

The GAO report focused in large part on the logistical challenges of holding elections on weekends, identifying challenges in doing so including “finding poll workers and polling places, and securing ballots and voting equipment-and expected cost increases.”

We believe the concerns raised by the GAO report are valid but certainly shouldn’t be a reason to keep Election Day on Tuesday. For one, the cost to our democracy is far higher to have chronic low voter turnout than a modest increase in the monetary cost of administering elections. (more…)

Posted in Election 2012, Election Reform, GAO | No Comments »

This morning I explained to Soledad O’Brien on CNN’s Starting Point why Americans have historically voted on Tuesdays and why we should move Election Day to the weekend. Soledad brought up that in Puerto Rico, Election Day is a holiday and turnout can get up to 90% of eligible voters. Her point was great, and I told her as much:

As you said, in Puerto Rico, [Election Day is] a national holiday. People are out in the streets celebrating. In America, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November is a work day, just like any other day. In New Hampshire, where you are right now, it’s one of the most political states in the entire Union and the last primary election for president held there 53% of the people showed up to vote.

Watch the video for more of our conversation. (more…)

Posted in Election 2012, New Hampshire, WT? in the news | No Comments »