Hey everybody. Former NBA All-Star, U.S. Senator, presidential candidate AND honorary WT? co-chair Bill Bradley will be in Los Angeles Friday, and before he tapes an appearance on Bill Maher’s show he’ll be discussing and signing copies of his new book at 4PM at the UCLA Faculty Center. The book is called The New American Story and it’s Bradley’s plan for “mak[ing] America a better, stronger, truer country.” In the book Bradley calls for weekend voting. Here’s the New York Times review of the book. WT?’s own Jake Soboroff will be there Friday, and he’s inviting you!

WT? on PBS: Thanks to Senator Bradley for talking about WhyTuesday.org last night on PBS. The Senator made his comments on Tavis Smiley.

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Why Tuesday? road team Jacob Soboroff and Barnett Zitron were back at it March 31, visting with WT? co-chair Bill Bradley. The former Senator and presidential candidate was in Mendham, N.J. signing copies of his new book, The New American Story. At the event, the Senator was shooting a video blog for his site. Look for the appearance (and an interview with Jacob) to show up there (or on his Gather page) soon. Jacob asked Senator Bradley what he thought was stopping Congress from changing the way and day we vote — check out his answer:

The question “why do we vote on Tuesday?” spurs many more fundamental questions: Why is the vanishing voter epidemic sweeping America? Why does the United States lag behind nearly every democracy on Earth in voter turnout? Senator Bradley’s book tour is just getting started. Check his schedule to hear him speak about these and other issues. He’ll be stopping by The Daily Show, Tavis Smiley and Real Time with Bill Maher too, so tune in to hear our co-chair getting out the Why? on national TV.

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We’re encouraging people around the country to ask their politicians a seemingly trivial question.

We’re devoting a website to the discussion of the clips we get.

Why are we doing this?

The answer is that we believe a conversation about structural and procedural election reforms, reforms designed to get more Americans into the voting booths, is one of our country’s most pressing needs. Why Tuesday and GOTW are not just about asking one question; what we mean by “why Tuesday” is, “Why are we doing things this way? Why aren’t we questioning how we run elections if they aren’t working? How can we be doing better?”

There is going to be a dramatic election today. Much will be written about what the outcome means for policy and politics over the next two years. There will be some contested elections- machines that didn’t work, polling stations so woefully under-staffed or -machined that voters are unjustly disenfranchised by clunky realities- and a good (perhaps a great) deal will be written about that. And then there will be turnout. There may be a “spike” in participation tomorrow, which for a midterm election means clearing forty-two or forty-three percent. There will be some written about this, and some brief discussion of the reasons behind our decline in participation since World War II. And then, everyone will get on with wondering who’s going to run in 2008.

This is fine, if you don’t believe our voter participation levels are a grave problem. But we think they are. We know many people and organizations agree, and we’re trying to pitch in and draw attention to the issue in our own way. The question it comes down to is simple: how can we change the procedures of voting- when we vote, how we vote- to do the best we can for the greatest number of Americans?

More after the break…
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Some of you may have noticed that new widget along the right of the blog from Voter Story (you may have to scroll down to see it); they’re doing a great service by compiling problems, obstacles, or mishaps that people encounter at the polls tomorrow. So, if you have trouble voting, fill it out and send it in to them. Once they compile them all, we’ll link back to that.

And if you have a problem that’s less procedural (wrong polling place, your registration isn’t on record, etc.) and more life-can-be-a-hassle (had to leave the house at 5am just to wait on line to vote), PLEASE post it here. We’re here through the elections and beyond, and after tomorrow is when our work really begins.

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Jurgen Worthing, of Wantagh, NY, writes in with this suggestion. Take a look and tell us what you think:

Let’s make voting a patriotic duty by combining it with Veterans Day and renaming something like Patriot’s Day, Freedom Day, or Liberty Day. How better can we honor our veterans than being patriotic and voting?

Like other holiday weekends that include Monday we could make election day the second Monday in November, part of a long weekend. A great day for shopping and voting. Give discounts in stores to those who have voted. In order to identify those who have voted, the election people could stamp people’s fingers purple (like in Iraq), stamp their voter cards, or hand out voting receipts.

Let’s get talking.

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