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 just got back from TEDxPHX where I spoke to a packed house at the Mesa Arts Center about Why Tuesday? and our efforts. My talk was called “Ask Why? For A Change.”

The conference was full of great ideas and really inspiring. Hope to have the video soon. More photos on my Tumblr.

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According to a local news outlet, Your Valley West, Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer took another leap towards making Election Day results in Arizona more transparent and accountable by installing multiple webcams inside all of the State’s vote tabulation rooms.

Arizona is one of two States that currently uses state-wide online voting registration system called EZVoter. The implementation of this system makes registering to vote much more convenient, and perhaps most important, allows interoperability between the States’ various databases rendering electronic voter rolls more accurate, more up-to-date, and more manageable by poll workers and election administrators. So, if you are living in Arizona, here is your suggested Election Day itinerary: (more…)

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* 9/25 Morning Update: Word via e-mail from Adam Liptak that the Supreme Court will take up the case. He also directed me to Loyola Law Professor Rick Hansen’s election law blog, where he got the info.

* 9/25 Afternoon Update: The New York Times has a piece up with the news.

In this morning’s New York Times, columnist Adam Liptak notes that today, in private, the Supreme Court will consider whether or not they want to take on Indiana’s voter identification law, put into place in 2005. Liptak responds in the piece to federal appeals court judge Judge Richard A. Posner’s January opinion that having photo identification is part and parcel of modern life in America. Liptak writes:

But somewhere between 13 million and 22 million Americans of voting age, most of them poor, get by without driver’s licenses, passports and other kinds of government documents bearing their pictures, perhaps because they do not have the money to drive, much less to fly.

The piece’s title is “Fear but Few Facts in Debate on Voter I.D.’s” — and Liptak cites numerous sources which come at the debate from numerous angles. He reports that a Heritage Foundation study found no negatie impact on voter turnout in states where I.D. laws were in place. But he also quotes a law professor from George Washington University who said in February that “the number of legitimate voters who would fail to bring photo identification to the polls is several times higher than the number of fraudulent voters.”

Liptak seems to err on the side of less restrictions, not more. To see why, click below.

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Greetings from Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia where we’re shooting the first episode of our new documentary series, set to debut with our new website in the weeks ahead!

Monday I’ll be in New York attending an event put on by friend of Why Tuesday? the Drum Major Institute. It’s a symposium about clean elections — getting big money out of politics to give voters a bigger say — featuring Dennis Burke, the former head of Arizona’s Common Cause, and others. For the info from the DMI, click below.

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