Citizens of San Francisco are one step closer to having elections over the weekend. The Saturday Voting Act Ordinance received the required amount of signatures and will be placed on the ballot for voters to say whether or not this idea becomes reality. The San Francisco Examiner has the details:

Ordinances require 7,168 signatures from registered San Francisco voters to make it onto the ballot.

If approved, the first time Saturday voting would occur would be for the November 2011 election, when voters will elect San Francisco’s next mayor.

Alex Tourk, a lobbyist and head of Ground Floors Public Affairs, is the official proponent of the proposed ballot measure.

“San Francisco residents deserve a voting system which corresponds to the schedules and lifestyles of working families. Allowing voting on Saturday would encourage parents to involve their children in the democratic process,” the ordinance says. The measure refers to a nationwide movement known as “Why Tuesday?”

How it would work is the Department of Elections would open up about 400 polling stations throughout The City for voting to occur the Saturday before the election day that occurs on Tuesday.

The measure says Saturday voting would increase voter turnout and make voting more accessible to families. If the pilot program is proven effective, then the measure urges the mayor and Board of Supervisors to figure out how to implement and pay for Saturday voting for future elections.

For more information on the campaign, visit Why Tuesday? San Francisco.

Photo of 2008 Election Day in San Fran by maneo on Flickr.

Posted in Election Reform, WT? in the news, Weekend voting, Why Tuesday? San Francisco | No Comments »

The San Francisco Chronicle gave our efforts, and those of our friends in the Why Tuesday? San Francisco movement, their vote of confidence recently in this editorial.

A midweek election day made perfect sense in this nation’s agrarian past. Today, Tuesday voting is an anachronism that contributes to abysmal turnout rates, even in a political hotbed such as San Francisco.

As one of the city’s top political consultants, Alex Tourk knows all about the struggle to get voters to the polls. He is initiating a campaign to peel away one more excuse for not voting by adding Saturday as an election day. His proposed ballot measure would provide the first test of the national “Why Tuesday?” movement’s theory that weekend voting would bring more citizens to the polls - and produce the atmosphere of civic engagement that pervades election days in other nations that vote on the weekend.

If San Francisco voters approve this experiment - signatures are now being collected to put it on the November ballot - Saturday voting would be tried in the November 2011 city election. The extra cost would be covered by private donations.

It’s a worthy experiment in democracy. To learn more about the effort, or to request a petition, go to www.whytuesdaysf.org.

Photo of SF Chronicle Building via Flickr.

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After speaking at the Personal Democracy Forum last month in New York, I sat for an interview with Andy Plesser of Beet.TV, the website and vlog that explores “the root of the media revolution.” Here’s Andy’s description of how, in his words, our “little video blog powered the agenda for election reform.”

A cheap camera, dogged determination, and a smart video blog strategy has created a national dialogue about election form in the United States.

[snip]

Without press credentials or special access, [Why Tuesday?] managed to tape segments with all of the 2008 presidential candidates and created tremendous attention for the election reform movement.

Posted in Election Reform, PDF, PDF09, WT? in the news | Comments Off

Join me and many friends of Why Tuesday? next week at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City. You might remember we were there last year, too. I’ll be speaking June 30th on the panel Online Video: Lessons from the Obama “Idea Factory” and 2008 Campaign. While I’m there, I’ll be tweeting on the Why Tuesday? twitter account, so follow along!

This year’s conference is focused on the theme of “We.gov” and all the ways campaigns, elections, media, advocacy and governance are becoming more open, participatory and collaborative. Keynote speakers include NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, White House CIO Vivek Kundra, Deputy CTO for Open Government Beth Noveck, State Department Senior Advisor for Innocation Alec Ross, New York Times columnist Frank Rich, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Fivethirtyeight.com blogger Nate Silver, Ning.com co-founder Gina Bianchini, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Obama ‘08 new media director Joe Rospars, and many, many others.

Posted in Friends of WT?, PDF09, WT? in the news | Comments Off

This morning on NPR Weekend Edition I talked about (as I vlogged about earlier) how voters need not register in North Dakota. Listen to my conversation with host Liane Hansen by clicking here.

While you’re at it, NPR’s Robert Siegel and Professor Paul Gronke of Reed College in Oregon discussed the evolution of the American voting system (including Siegel talking about why we vote on Tuesday) on All Things Considered this past Friday. Listen to their conversation by clicking here.

Photo of Burleigh County, ND seal by me via Why Tuesday? on Flickr.

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We first appeared on Rocketboom when we launched our Candidate Challenge in September 2007. And again from the Iowa caucus in January 2008. Their whole team including host Joanne Colan have been great about discussing the state of America’s voting system. Here’s our latest interview.

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, WT? in the news, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | Comments Off

Welcome KTRH morning news listeners in Houston! Even up here in the Big Apple we say everything is bigger in Texas. Well, perhaps not the skyscrapers. And yet, when it comes to early voting that certainly is true.

Moreover, in 2004 over 2.4 million Texans or nearly 30% of voting eligible population voted early. So far in 2008, over 2 million Texans have voted early, quickly approaching 25% of the vote eligible population – and there are still 2 days of early voting left. By all accounts, Texas’ 2004 record early voting turnout will be shattered this year. Look here at Galveston County turnout numbers and Lubbock turnout, for example. (more…)

Posted in Absentee ballots, Early voting, Election 2008, Election administration, Houston, National Holiday, Texas, WT? in the news, Weekend voting | Comments Off

Right now on the front page of FOXNews.com there’s a story by Judson Berger based in part on the blog post I wrote yesterday about the Obama campaign’s call to off take work or school on Election Day. A screen cap is below.

Berger speculates that Obama’s ad “might help rekindle a debate over whether Election Day should be made a national holiday or moved to the weekend as a way to boost voter participation.” Even so, he didn’t have much luck getting an answer from either campaign about the candidates positions on our voting system.

Neither Obama’s nor McCain’s campaigns would comment on whether the nominees actually support holding Election Day on a holiday or weekend.

Not to worry. During the primary election cycle, I spoke with both Senators Obama and McCain about their feelings about our voting system, and what they think we can do to increase voter participation. Click here for my interview with Senator Obama. Click here for my interview with Senator McCain.

Posted in Election 2008, Existing laws, WT? in the news, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | Comments Off

ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent and “This Week” Host George Stephanopoulos saw our Op-Ed in The New York Times today, and liked it, or so he blogged. See below for his endorsement of Weekend Voting from “George’s Bottom Line.”

Let’s Go to Weekend Voting

October 24, 2008 9:58 AM

One third of likely voters say they’ll vote early, nearly double what it was eight years ago.

But we don’t yet know whether the surge in early voting is simply capturing people who are going to vote anyway or actually expanding the electorate.

In their New York Times op-ed today, Rep. Steve Israel, D-NY, and Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, call for weekend voting to increase the country’s voter turnout rate.

They argue Tuesday voting has depressed voter turnout rates in the US, and unfairly penalizes low-income voters who often choose between having to work and voting.

Israel is sponsoring a bill in the House of Representatives to scrap Tuesday voting and move to weekend voting on the first Saturday and Sunday after the first Friday in November.

I think Israel and Ornstein raise an important point here. Let’s go to weekend voting.

For more from Stephanopoulos, click here.

Photo of Stephanopoulos preparing for the ABC News Democratic Debate at the National Constitution Center by Why Tuesday? director of photography Thomas Macker.

Posted in Election 2008, Election Reform, Election administration, George Stephanopoulos, Steve Israel, WT? in the news, Why do we vote on Tuesday? | 1 Comment »

The following Op-Ed, penned by our board member Norman J. Ornstein and U.S. Representative Steve Israel, is running today in the New York Times.

Washington

BY Nov. 4, more than $5 billion will have been spent trying to persuade voters to cast their presidential and congressional ballots one way or another. Despite all the money and the news media hysteria, and even with record numbers of Americans heading to the polls, the United States won’t even come close to the top nations in the world for voter turnout. We will be well behind — to name just a few — Iceland, Sweden and New Zealand.

What do those countries, among many others, have in common? Their citizens all vote on a weekend day. But in the United States, for more than 150 years, we’ve voted on Tuesday. Why? It’s not in the Constitution. It isn’t to avoid holidays. And it’s not because people hate Mondays.

The reason we vote on Tuesday makes perfect sense — at least it did in 1845.

To understand the decision Congress made that year, let’s imagine ourselves as members of early agrarian American society. Saturday was for farming, Sunday was the Lord’s day, Monday was required for travel to the county seat where the polling places were, Tuesday you voted, Wednesday you returned home, and Thursday it was back to work.

It’s a safe bet that today most Americans don’t follow the same schedule as our farming forefathers. In fact, for many, Tuesday is one of the most inconvenient days to hold an election. One in four people who didn’t vote in 2006 said that they were “too busy” or had “conflicting work or school schedules.”

Legislation now before Congress would finally tailor our voting system to modern American life by establishing weekend voting for national elections. (Mr. Israel is sponsoring the bill in the House.) Here’s how it would work: The presidential election would be held on the Saturday and Sunday after the first Friday in November, while for those who aren’t often home on the weekends, there would be a few days of early voting.

Our current system penalizes single parents, people working two jobs, and those who have to choose between getting a paycheck and casting a ballot. Two weekend days of voting means those working families would have a greater chance of making it to the polls. It means easing the long lines during rush hour at the polling sites. It means more locations, more poll workers and more voters.

Some have suggested making Election Day a holiday, but that would involve a serious cost to the economy. Moving Election Day to the weekend means more convenience and less expense.

Making a change like this won’t be easy, but it’s not unprecedented. In 1968, Congress passed the Monday Holiday law, which moved Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day and Washington’s Birthday from their original dates to Mondays. If we can alter our federal holidays to benefit shoppers and travelers, surely we can change Election Day for the benefit of our voters.

Let’s take a cue from the Congress of 1845 and ensure that voting is available to as many working Americans as possible — not just those who can make it to the polls on a Tuesday.

To learn more about Why Tuesday? click here.

Illustration by Ivory Simms for The New York Times.

Posted in New York Times, WT? in the news, Weekend voting | 3 Comments »