Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
|
Newstopia sounds like the Daily Show down under. In this clip they explain our election system, described by a commenter on NPR Sunday Soapbox as a Rube Goldberg system. Watch the video to see why. |
Monday, April 21st, 2008
|
Last week team Why Tuesday? visited with Senator Bill Nelson (D-FLA) in his Washington, D.C. office to discuss his sweeping plan to change the way and day we vote, and why he chose now to introduce his plan. Watch the video for his answers. (more…) |
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
Why Tuesday? Board Member Norman J. Ornstein
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is one of the good guys in Congress — smart, thoughtful, decent and hardworking. Now, fortunately, he is turning his attention and considerable energies to election reform, a broadly defined issue.
It is fortunate for two reasons: First, there are big issues out there and enough people distrustful of the electoral process or cynical about it to create a real crisis of governance the next time we have a very close election. Second, precious few lawmakers have decided to devote their time and attention to this topic.
Despite the emotions raised by problems with voting, this is not a slam-dunk winner of an issue politically. And those lawmakers who were instrumental in passing the Help America Vote Act in 2002 have either lost interest in the issue, are exhausted from it or believe we should wait awhile before acting again.
They are wrong. We do need to be careful about rushing to major reform without considering the costs and consequences; we are paying now for the rush to employ touch-screen devices known as DREs, or direct-recording electronic machines. And every major reform has to be absorbed by hapless election administrators who have neither the resources nor the trained personnel to make big changes on a frequent basis.
Monday, November 5th, 2007
Peter Dreier, Occidental College professor and my colleague at the Huffington Post’s OffTheBus project, reports that the bid to apportion Electoral College votes by congressional district isn’t yet dead, as previously reported here. Jennifer Steinhauer at the New York Times had the story in the New York Times November 2nd.
Friday, September 28th, 2007
The drive to have California’s electoral votes awarded by congressional district instead of a winner-take-all system seems to have run into some trouble. The LA Times reports that the campaign is now short on money… and staff.
Unable to raise sufficient money and angered over a lack of disclosure by its one large donor, veteran political law attorney Thomas Hiltachk, who drafted the measure, said he was resigning from the committee.
Hiltachk’s departure is a major blow to the operation because he organized other consultants who had set about trying to raise money and gather signatures for the initiative. Campaign spokesman Kevin Eckery said he was ending his role as well.
There remained a chance that the measure could be revived, but only if a major donor were to come forward to fund the petition drive. However, time is short to gather the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed by the end of November. And backers said Thursday that they believed the measure was all but dead, at least for the 2008 election.
Could have been the actor Bradley Whitford’s YouTube plea to the citizens of California that stopped the initiative? Guess we’ll never know.
Previously on WT?BLOG
Alter: C.A. GOP, N.C. Dems trying to steal elections?
Sunday, August 5th, 2007
Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter calls out what he deems the “mischief” of gerrymandering and two current plans by Democratic and Republican politicians in North Carolina and California, respectively, which, he writes, attempt to “rig admission to the Electoral College for strictly partisan purposes.” Both plans would award candidates presidential electoral votes based on the number of congressional districts they win. In California, the attempt - a ballot initiative - may not be constitutional.
Alter explains why he thinks change would make certain votes “count” for more than others - and his own plan for direct election of the president by popular vote without having to amend the Constitution - after the jump.
(more…)
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
The (unstoppable) Road Team caught up with Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congresswoman Jane Harman at a rally for Phil Angelides in California. Senator Feinstein, a 14-year veteran and California’s senior Senator, wasn’t ready to come down for or against voting as a holiday. The team caught Congresswoman Harman- whose website is to be commended for its richness in substantive policy issues, by the way- at a better time, however, and she has a ton to say.
The Congresswoman mentions several touchpoints of election reform: public financing, reforming the Electoral College, making Election Day a holiday, and considering the lessons of several countries where she’s observed Sunday elections where it’s a big celebration everyone wears their finest duds. In addition to serving as a testament to the Congresswoman’s awareness of these issues, it’s interesting that once again someone has observed how interlinked many aspects of reform are. One needn’t wait for all the others, but focusing on any one area seems to make it easier to consider improving other aspects of the system.
Why Tuesday? is an effort to make America’s democracy stronger through increased voter participation. We work to make election reform an issue that our politicians cannot afford to avoid.
