I often cite Thomas Paine’s famous statement that voting for representatives is the right by which all other rights are protected. But this day in age — living in a “videocracy” — platforms like MySpace and YouTube are arguably as important. Now we can add NPR to that list as well.

I just filed this report for NPR Sunday Soapbox about the new Get My Vote initiative, an interactive forum where you can share what it would take to get your vote, and why. If you participate some of your stuff might end up on air!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

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John Stewart introduced new Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac Tuesday night, and he’s already a favorite of ours around here. Check out his exchange with Stewart.

Cenac: I mean, this election… it’s outlasted Bionic Woman. That’s stupid. How does something this boring not get canceled?

Stewart: Well, it didn’t get canceled. Election Day is Tuesday, November 4th. After that you won’t have to worry about it for another couple years.

Cenac: Wait, wait. Election Day — it’s on a Tuesday? Damn, that’s Beauty and the Geek night.

Stewart: Thank you, Wyatt.

Cenac: Hey, when’s this on?

Stewart: Tonight.

Cenac: Tuesday? Damn.

Do you know why we vote on Tuesday? Here’s the answer. To watch Stewart and Cenac chat, start the video below at the 3:32 mark. Thanks to Why Tuesday? Director of Photography Thomas Macker for the tip.

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As I tweeted earlier, I was stuck in traffic on Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles as Hillary Clinton came on the air tonight to give her final primary-night speech of the 2008 presidential election. I’m home now, and Barack Obama has just claimed the Democratic nomination. On the radio, Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe cited a 20 million voter increase from the 2004 primary election cycle to this one. Now the question is this: how do we sustain that record turnout — across party lines?

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Voting isn’t the only thing that is inconvenient on Tuesday, as this cartoon illustrates.

Do you know why we vote on Tuesday? You’ll find the answer here.

Thanks to Steve Garfield for sending this along via Chuck Olsen.

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HBO Films’ RECOUNT debuts tonight. Last week I was in Washington, D.C. and stopped by National Public Radio to tape a simultaneous vlog and radio interview with Ari Shapiro, this week’s host of Weekend Edition Sunday. We taked about how the film — like our work at Why Tuesday? — is raising questions about the state of America’s voting system.

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Posted in Laura Dern, Ed Begley Jr., John Hurt, Denis Leary, Tom Wilkinson, Bob Balaban, Kevin Spacey, Election 2000, Election Reform, Recount, Movie, HBO, Florida | No Comments »

Tuesday night in Houston, Texas the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University held a screening of HBO Films’ RECOUNT, which we discussed here yesterday. The screening reunited the namesakes of the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

While this RECOUNT is for fun and profit, the Houston Chronicle reports it’s also a wish of the filmmakers and those involved to spark a discussion about the state of our voting system, much like we try to do.

“There’s still a degree of unfinished business out there when you look at the election system in our country,” Baker said.

Carter said the most important change would be requiring the use of a “paper trail” — receipts of a sort, that would help voters verify that their ballots have been cast as they intended on electronic voting machines. Paper trail equipment has been put to use in some states; Texas officials have resisted it.

Baker said the nation most urgently needs unified voter registration lists and the photo ID requirement. Democrats in the Texas Senate shot down a photo ID proposal last year; this year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the requirement in Indiana.

Still, Carter said the country has made progress on the issue since 2000, if for no other reason than the commission headed by the two men made recommendations that can still serve as an election reform bible. Baker proudly pointed out that Supreme Court justices mentioned the commission report in some of their opinions on the Indiana case.

For more information about RECOUNT, click here.

Posted in Election 2000, Election Reform, Texas, Election 2008 | No Comments »

On Friday controversial nominee Hans von Spakovsky took his name out of the hat of possible Federal Election Commissioners. The way is now cleared for some interrupted business at the Federal Election Commission, which is tasked with “enforc[ing] the Federal Election Campaign Act - the statute that governs the financing of federal elections,” including hearing public financing inquiries from presidential candidates. The AP gives the back-story:

Democrats have objected to Mr. von Spakovsky’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he oversaw voting rights matters. The standoff has held up other Senate confirmations to the six-member commission, which is without a quorum and has been unable to conduct business […] Democrats have accused Mr. von Spakovsky of trying to suppress voter participation through new restrictions like voter identification laws and purges of voter rolls.

Republicans say a recent Supreme Court ruling upholding a strict Indiana voter identification law vindicated Mr. von Spakovsky’s stance on the issue.

I met Spakovsky at an April 2, 2008 lunch meeting of the Los Angeles Federalist Society that I found out about online. Spakovsky’s lecture was called “Litigating Elections: the Campaign Process in 2008.” After his talk we chatted (see photo), but he declined to be interviewed by Why Tuesday? for our vlog.

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NPR’s Ina Jaffe took a look yesterday for Weekend Edition Sunday at the vote-by-mail election system in Oregon, and how the rules there make campaigning a unique experience.

A big critique of vote-by-mail, which has been echoed here by Norman J. Ornstein, is that the process negates the secret ballot. “We got rid of that big reform that guaranteed secrecy in the voting booth,” said Jim Moore, political science professor at Pacific University, “and got rid of the idea that no one can come between you and directly placing your ballot in the box — a sealed locked box.”

Listen to Jaffe’s piece here. My piece this week for NPR Sunday Soapbox, which was teased on Weekend Edition Sunday, was about how super delegates are shifting the election reform debate from our voting systems to our party system.

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Many of you were in touch to let us know about Tom Brokaw mentioning our efforts on MSNBC last night during the election coverage. Here is the transcript of his conversation with Chris Matthews, from MSNBC:

MATTHEWS: Tom, you know, back in—we watched the movie that other night in that Washington showing of the film about the recount in 2000, and if you think about what happened after that vote, and the Supreme Court’s intervention, it was African-Americans in the Congress.

Remember how zealous they were in trying to get that rejected, that Supreme Court intervention? It was the strongest community in the country on the hottest issue and the hottest group—community of concern about that matter, the way that was decided in 2000.

BROKAW: Well, they continue to feel—Andy Young is—led a real crusade in this country to have more focus, once again, on the Voting Rights Act. He thinks they need to go to the next step now. “Why Tuesday?” is the name of his campaign, because so many African-American voters and people at the lower end of the socio-economic scale, whatever their color, can’t always get to a polling place on a Tuesday.

And then there’s the Supreme Court decision now which has caused some controversy in Indiana that you have to have a photo ID of some kind. I think that may be less important in the final analysis. But it’s worth examining how you can make it possible for working class Americans, especially African-Americans, many of whom work two jobs, that they can get to the polling place easily.

So Andy Young, who is an old soldier, of course, in Dr. King’s crusade, and then the other young black legislators who are coming up in the South, those who were already in office, people like Harold Ford, we’ll be hearing from tonight. They have a big stake in all of this in making sure that their vote counts and that they are a new kind of constituency, not just on autopilot for the Democratic Party anymore.

If you’re new here, you can learn more about Ambassador Andrew Young and other members of our team. Do you know why we vote on Tuesday? If not, find out here.

Screen grab of Brokaw, Brian Williams and Tim Russert from MSNBC.

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