Two of the most hotly-contested primary states this year, South Carolina and Louisiana, produced their highest-ever voter turnout for a Republican presidential primary election while voting on Saturdays. Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary with the majority of the record-setting 21% of GOP primary voters who showed up on a Saturday in January. And over the weekend Rick Santorum took home the W in Louisiana when a record-breaking 917,046 people showed up to vote, according to this tweet from Trip Gabriel at the New York Times.

Though turnout at first seemed low in LA primary, it actually set a record: 186,400, up 25,000 from 2008. Motivated Santo voters?

— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) March 25, 2012

All of this points to what Cook County, Illinois Clerk wrote on The Huffington Post last week, that the time for weekend voting, and for congress to pass The Weekend Voting Act, has come. (more…)

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Fantastic news! This morning United States Representatives Steve Israel and John Larson announced they have reintroduced the Weekend Voting Act, which would move federal Election Day to the weekend so more people can vote, into Congress. For the past seven years we have worked to make election reform, in particular the absurd and antiquated reason we vote on Tuesday an issue our elected officials cannot afford to avoid, and this legislation takes our movement one step closer to our goal.

Literally millions of people have been made aware of the backwards reason Americas vote on Tuesday by watching our videos at WhyTuesday.org. With the reintroduction of the Weekend Voting Act, now 535 members of Congress will have the opportunity to add their names to that list by supporting a bill that will make voting accessible for all Americans.

William J. Wachtel, the founder of Why Tuesday? said today: “I founded Why Tuesday? in 2005 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to shine a light on America’s broken voting system, and to make election reform an issue our elected officials could not avoid. With the reintroduction of the Weekend Voting Act the onus is now on the members of Congress, all whom were elected on a Tuesday, to show they are more concerned with the health of our democracy than their own job security.

The complete press release from the Congress of the United States is below. (more…)

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Attendees at the TED conference, “the place for glimpses into the future,” according to the Wall Street Journal, got an up close and personal look at the work we do here to increase American voter turnout when my talk was played on the main stage yesterday in Long Beach. It was quite a journey to make it happen, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a dream come true for me and my colleagues here to get our message out to some of the brightest thinkers on the planet.

Here’s how it happened: for the second year in a row I was lucky enough to attend TED Active, the Palm Springs satellite feed of the TED conference, and this year I was invited to give a talk about Why Tuesday. So I did — when else — on Tuesday, the opening day of the conference. And yesterday, on the final day of the conference, Chris Anderson introduced my talk — selected by his team — to the audience in Long Beach. Take a look at some of the tweets and photos from my talk. (more…)

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Mitt Romney doesn’t know why we vote on Tuesday — joining fellow 2012 presidential candidates Santorum, Gingrich and Paul in being stumped by a question that is crucial to the day they live for: Election Day.

We ask the question because American voter turnout ranks near the bottom of all nations in the world, and we hope that when the candidates learn the absurd and antiquated answer it will get them and others thinking about ways to best increase America’s horrendous voter turnout — including voting on the weekend.

Here’s the exchange between Romney and Michigan journalist Brody O’Connell:

O’CONNEL: Do you know why historically elections are held on Tuesdays?

ROMNEY: I have no idea.

Romney was asked by O’Connell, a multimedia journalist at Michigan’s WPBN-WTOM TV 7&4, as part of a larger interview. O’Connell had filed a report about our movement last week, and his question to Romney was a follow-up. Watch their complete exchange yourself. (more…)

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Earlier this morning I joined host Jonathan Hunt on his FOX News “On The Hunt” program to talk about Why Tuesday? and the work we’re doing to try and increase American voter participation.

We spent nearly ten minutes talking about how absurd it is that the United States still, 167 years after Tuesday Election Day was picked to make voting convenient for an agrarian society traveling by horse-and-buggy, that we vote in the middle of the work week. We had a laugh when I said this to the host:

I do not often travel by horse and buggy in 2012, Jonathan, and I’d imagine you don’t either.

Throughout the conversation Jonathan read viewer questions and feedback from the FOXNews.com online audience, including comments about voting online, voter ID and more. You can watch our complete conversation here. (more…)

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After HBO’s Bill Maher wraps up his on-air show he shifts into “Overtime,” an online extra where he continues the conversation with his panelist. This week one of the questions he posed was one familiar to us here: “how much would voter turnout be affected if elections were held on Saturdays?” Maher answered his own question:

Oh, I think a lot. I think a lot more people would vote — and this is what most countries have — it’s a holiday — it should be a holiday — you shouldn’t have to like leave work or maybe not be able to vote at all because you have to work.

Watch the complete conversation, with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, reporter Erin McPike and author Stephen Moore at the 2:40 mark. (more…)

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