Venezuelans are voting this weekend… and it isn’t on a Tuesday.

This just in, from Al Jazeera English:

Preparations were in full swing on SATURDAY for the election that will determine who governs the country for a six-year term from 2013 to 2019.

Venezuelans crowded grocery stores and markets to stock up on food and queued to collect the national ID cards they need for voting.

Emphasis ours. But you get the point. And voter turnout is expected to be high.

Why, oh why, do we vote on Tuesday again?

Absolutely no good reason whatsoever.

Posted in Election 2012, Election Reform, International elections, Venezuela | Comments Off

As we were saying… France today voted for president with an 80% turnout. Today, as in a Sunday. And why do we vote on Tuesday again in the United States, where our turnout averages 50%? Oh, that’s right. No good reason.

One of our major disappointments with the recent U.S. Government Accountability Office study about implementing nationwide weekend voting was that it didn’t look at voter turnout in other countries with weekend voting. The good news is, people are starting to take notice.

Today a few of Twitter’s boldface names — and many more — pointed out how silly it is America votes smack in the middle of the work week. First came the realization that France had turnout we’ve only dreamed of in the United States, by Anthony De Rosa of Reuters.

French presidential election turnout was over 80%

— Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) May 6, 2012

After his tweet, the conversation starting picking up. (more…)

Posted in International elections | 1 Comment »

Our friends at YouTube’s Citizentube have posted this video of a pro-democracy rally in Malaysia.

The Guardian breaks down why the rally is taking place:

Tensions have mounted in this normally staid state, often called “Moderate Malaysia”, after a group of 62 non-governmental organisations known locally as Bersih 2.0 proposed a peaceful protest, dubbed the “Walk for Democracy”, against alleged vote-rigging and other electoral abuses in a recent state election.

While our nation could a pro-democracy rally (or many) to spur changes in our voting system, with such terribly low voter participation, these types of gatherings are not something we see here in the United States.

Posted in Election Reform, International elections | Comments Off

All we want for Christmas is higher voter turnout in the United States. This man was so excited about democratic elections in Chile he shows up to the polls dressed as Santa! If only we could be so thrilled by our democracy. Below are the details from Reuters.

Rigoberto Martinez, dressed as Santa Claus, rings a bell while voting in a voting booth in a public school during municipal elections in Valparaiso city, about 75 miles (120 km) northwest of Santiago, October 26, 2008. Martinez said he has dressed as Santa Claus in all elections since the return to democracy in 1990 from the 17-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Merry Christmas!

Posted in Christmas, Election Reform, International elections | 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