If New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has his way Americans would be automatically registered to vote, they would be voting on the weekend, and it would be easier to gain access to the ballot if you wanted to run for office in New York City.

Today Mayor Bloomberg announced his “Easy to Vote & Easy to Run” election reform plan which includes an endorsement of Rep. Steve Israel and Sen. Herb Kohl’s Weekend Voting Act, a piece of legislation that we’ve talked a lot about here. The data-friendly mayor also wants to create a Democracy Index in New York City to help target, as he has done with the 3-1-1 system in New York City, problem voting areas throughout New York’s five boroughs.

Why Tuesday? board member Norman J. Ornstein is quoted in Mayor Bloomberg’s press release announcing his plan, saying “this set of reforms is a huge step forward to making the voting system work and revitalizing democracy in New York. It should serve as a model for elections across the country.” The Mayor’s complete press release is below. (more…)

Posted in Demcoracy Index, Election 2008, Election Reform, Mayor Bloomberg, New York, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | 3 Comments »

Sarah Burris wrote the following blog after attending the election reform panel at Netroots Nation 2009. Burris blogs at Future Majority and served as a reporter for Rock the Vote’s project Rock the Trail during the 2008 elections. She was a recipient of the Democracy for America scholarship to Netroots Nation in Austin, Texas in 2008.

One of the panels I attended at Netroots Nation was Repairing our Democracy: Voter Registration Modernization and other Solutions with speakers Secretary Debra Bowen California’s Secretary of State, Dean Logan the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk for Los Angeles County (the nation’s largest county), Jonah Goldman a national expert on voting and elections, and Justin Levitt counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. The panel was also moderated by Eric Marshall, campaign manager for the National Campaign for Fair Elections in the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s Voting Rights Project.

Highly knowledgeable experts on the panel seemed to develop the consensus that the system is broken. (more…)

Posted in #Netroots, Election 2008, Election Reform, nn09 | Comments Off

For the 2008 United States presidential election, we teamed with YouTube and PBS to launch Video Your Vote, a program that intended to create the largest library of polling place Election Day video ever in order to help make voting as accessible, reliable and secure as possible (see the NYT article). It was a giant leap for the United States election community, where we can’t even register to vote online (except in Washington and Arizona). As we’ve discussed here before (see my video chat with Princeton professor Ed Felten), in Estonia, they’re already voting on the internet.

Now Google, YouTube’s parent company, is teaming up with some heavy hitters in India to bring vital election info to the people of India with their Lok Sabha Elections Center, the type of project that is much-needed here. I picked up this story via our advisory board member Tom Rossmeissl, who saw it on TechCrunch. (more…)

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, International elections, YouTube | Comments Off

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, goes the expression. Well, according to the New York Times, the American voting system IS broken. So let’s fix it. For us here at Why Tuesday? it was an extreme pleasure to see an extra-long editorial making the case for election reform this morning.

In last year’s presidential election, as many as three million registered voters were not allowed to cast ballots and millions more chose not to because of extremely long lines and other frustrating obstacles. Ever since the 2000 election in Florida, the serious flaws in the voting system have been abundantly clear. More than eight years later, Congress must finally deliver on its promise of electoral reform.

At a hearing last week, the Senate Rules Committee released a report sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the sorry state of voting. It said that administrative barriers, such as error-filled voting lists or wrongful purges of voter rolls prevented as many as three million registered voters from casting ballots. Another two million to four million registered voters were discouraged from even trying to vote because of difficulty obtaining an absentee ballot, voter ID issues and other problems.

The bad news didn’t end there. According to the report, another nine million eligible voters tried to register but failed to because of a variety of hurdles, including missed deadlines or changes in residence.

[snip]

President Obama championed election reform when he was in the Senate, and Democrats, who have been far more committed to the cause than Republicans, now have healthy margins in both houses of Congress. Supporters of a more fair, efficient and inclusive system of voting should not let this moment slip away. The millions of registered voters who are being turned away deserve a lot better.

We know well that President Obama supports election reform. He said so to me in this vlog we shot with him in Iowa during the 2008 campaign.

The NYT editorial mainly advocates for universal voter registration, sort of like what we saw when we visited North Dakota on Election Day, and for more lenient voter ID laws. There’s no mention, however, of a problem that is routinely cited by Americans time after time in U.S. Census data: for many Americans, votin is simply inconvenient. In more than a handful of states, you can only vote on “the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.” Why Tuesday? Here’s the answer.

Previously in the NYT:
Voting Rights Act Scaled Back
Uphold the Voting Rights Act
Why Tuesday? New York Times Op-Ed: Everyone’s Voting For The Weekend

More voting news today:
LA Times: Conservatives invoke Obama in Voting Rights Act challenge

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform | 2 Comments »

As we’ve discussed here before, the struggle to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a moment in American history that is near and dear to our hearts. And in the spirit of the Voting Rights Act the Why Tuesday? team strives to find solutions to increase voter turnout and participation in elections.

Some of the same rank-and-file that participated in the fight for Civil Rights, like Ambassador Andrew Young and our founder Bill Wachtel, are the Why Tuesday? board members that push us every day to keep on in the war on low voter turnout.

Today the New York Times takes a look at an effort in Texas to repeal a specific section of the Voting Rights Act, in the name of progress, and decides that the argument being presented is flawed and counterproductive.

Some people claim that Barack Obama’s election has ushered in a “postracial” America, but the truth is that race, and racial discrimination, are still very much with us. The Supreme Court should keep this reality in mind when it considers a challenge to an important part of the Voting Rights Act that it recently agreed to hear. The act is constitutional — and clearly still needed.

Section 5, often called the heart of the Voting Rights Act, requires some states and smaller jurisdictions to “preclear” new voting rules with the Justice Department or a federal court. When they do, they have to show that the proposed change does not have the purpose or effect of discriminating against minority voters.

[snip]

In last fall’s election, despite his strong national margin of victory — and hefty campaign chest — Mr. Obama got only about one in five white votes in the Southern states wholly or partly covered by Section 5. And there is every reason to believe that minority voters will continue to face obstacles at the polls.

If Section 5 is struck down, states and localities would have far more freedom to erect barriers for minority voters — and there is little doubt that some would do just that. We have not arrived at the day when special protections like the Voting Rights Act are not needed.

We’ll keep on top of this story. To read the complete New York Times editorial, click here.

For more on our connection to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and to learn more about what we do, click here. Still don’t know why we vote on Tuesday? Here’s the answer.

Posted in Civil Rights, Election 2008, Election Reform, New York Times, Voting Rights Act, WT? Advisory Board | Comments Off

Yesterday Professor Michael McDonald of George Mason University posted this interesting fact on his website: “30% of all votes were cast prior to Election Day, November 4, 2008.” Pretty amazing, right? This is up from 20% in 2004 and 7% in 2000, according to McDonald.

What does this all mean? Perhaps that folks don’t want to vote on Tuesday, smack in the middle of the work week, when presented with the option. That said, not all states allow no-excuse absentee or early voting, and in those states, it’s Tuesday or bust.

Need a reminder of why we still vote on Tuesday in the United States? You’ll find it here.

Hat tip to Why Tuesday? Advisory Board member Jim Brayton for the link. Photo of early voting sign via MY PINK SOAPBOX - BY ANAHI DECANIO on Flickr.

Posted in Early voting, Election 2008 | Comments Off

This past week, Senator Herb Kohl (WI) and Representative Steve Israel (NY) introduced the Weekend Voting Act in Congress in an attempt to increase America’s voter participation. Despite unparalleled enthusiasm about the 2008 campaign, nearly 40% of Americans sat idle, at home, away from the voting booth, and American voter participation ranks near the bottom of all countries in the world!

So what might President-Elect Obama say about the idea of a Weekend Voting Act? Below, in his own words, is the President-Elect on the state of America’s voting system. I spoke with the President-Elect when he was still Senator Obama, in 2007, at the MTV/MySpace Presidential Dialogue at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Well, couple things. Number one, I think we have to make it easier to vote. And I’m assuming that “Why Tuesday?” is for in favor of, for example, having it one weekends so that more people can vote. Same-day registration I think in a lot of states has shown to make sense. You know, early voting is another way to encourage people and make it more convenient for them to vote. But I think that, more than that, we also have to change what people are voting for. And if we don’t have serious campaign finance reform legislation, if we are not restricting the power of lobbyists and special interests to determine what the agenda is in Washington then people are going to get discouraged and no matter how easy you make it for them to participate they won’t participate.

To watch the video of my interview with President-Elect Obama, click here.

Still don’t know why we vote on Tuesday? Here’s the answer.

Photo of Democratic Presidential Nominee, Senator Barack Obama and his wife Michelle voting in Chicago, IL on election day by David Katz of Obama for America via Flickr.

Posted in Barack Obama, Election 2008, Election Reform, Existing laws, Herb Kohl, New York, Steve Israel, Weekend voting, Why do we vote on Tuesday?, Wisconsin | Comments Off

Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka from the island of Oahu. I know it’s been quiet around here, but we’re gearing up for 2009 and there will be lots more to come from us soon.

As you’ve probably noticed, President-elect Barack Obama is spending his final Christmas vacation here, in the state where he was born, before moving himself and his family into the White House. I’m also on Oahu for my family vaction, but I’d never miss an opportunity to get the President-elect thinking about our voting system.

Yesterday I walked on the beach near his Hawaii vacation home sporting my WHYTUESDAY.ORG t-shirt in hopes he might catch a glimpse and log on. After all, the state of our voting system is arguably more important now than ever before since nearly 40% of Americans sat idle, away from the voting booth, this election.

You may remember that I interviewed President-elect Obama last year during the primary election cycle in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. For that interview, click here. And to buy a Why Tuesday? t-shirt of your own, drop us a note.

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, Hawaii, President Obama | Comments Off

After having spent Election Day documenting the way folks cast ballots in North Dakota, the only state without voter registration, I was excited to read Ian Urbina’s article this morning in the New York Times about the future of the American voting system.

According to several reports, voter turnout, despite record highs in the primary election cycle, didn’t break any all-time percentage records for United States elections. Urbina focuses on two ways to increase voter participation and reduce problems on Election Day: universal voter registration and the expansion of early voting.

Many of the states that allowed early voting this year experienced few delays on Election Day, and now federal election officials, lawmakers and voting experts say people in every state should have the same privilege.

There is also increasing support for broadly expanding voter registration rolls, possibly by having the federal government require the states to make registration automatic for all eligible voters. Supporters say universal registration could reduce registration fraud and the confusion at the polls that results when voters are purged from the rolls.

Urbina’s article also explores the potential cleavages that might emerge as these types of election reforms arise, particularly between states and the federal government.

R. Doug Lewis, director of the National Association of Election Officials, a nonpartisan group that represents local and state election officials, said his members saw this as a “state’s rights issue” and were not thrilled about any possible federal takeover of registration or new laws that required early voting. But Mr. Lewis said they would support legislation that gave states incentives to help achieve these goals.

Most state election officials see the merit in early voting, Mr. Lewis said, and have become frustrated by dealing with voter registrations being submitted by third-party organizations, often in duplicate or with errors. He said state officials believed that they could do a better job than Washington in deciding how to keep the lists accurate and whether to expand them.

Another possible fix to reduce delays or problems on Election Day that didn’t make it into Urbina’s article is weekend voting or a National Election Day Holiday. In case you missed it, Rep. Steve Israel of Long Island and our board member Norman J. Ornstein penned this op-ed, which ran in the New York Times two weeks ago today about that possibility.

As a society that has been able to learn from our best and worst practices over the last 163 years, since Tuesday voting was set in 1845, we surely can do better at enhancing access to what Thomas Paine called the right by which all others are protected.

President-Elect Barack Obama shared with me his thoughts about the state of the American voting system, including his support for weekend voting, back during the primary election cycle. You can watch that interview here.

Still don’t know why we vote on Tuesday? Click here for the answer.

Photo by Isaac Brekken for The New York Times.

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, Election administration, Steve Israel, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | Comments Off