We’re a non-partisan, nonprofit group working to increase participation in elections. Despite the excitement of the 2008 campaign, predictions of record voter turnout were too optimistic. In 2009, turnout was anemic. This video sums up who we are and what we do. It was produced for Current TV by John Carluccio. Follow us on Twitter for the latest from our team.
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Why Tuesday? is a non-partisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2005 to find solutions to increase voter turnout and participation in elections.
December 20th, 2009
This last weekend the Sunlight Foundation’s Sunlight Labs hosted the Great American Hackathon. The idea was to bring developers and coders together in an attempt to develop open source applications to solve open government problems.
One promising project that emerged from the weekend event was a project relating to the Voting Information Project that attempts to make it easier for soldiers to vote absentee overseas. TechPresident provides insight:
One neat little outgrowth of this weekend’s Great American Hackathon…is a widget in the works that — driven by state and local election data from the rather promising Voting Information Project — would spit out what’s called a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot for military members living overseas, customized for their home voting location. If it works, it could help to simplify a process that can be enormously complex. In recent U.S. elections, American soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere have run into real trouble (a) getting their ballots, (b) getting them in on time, and (c) staying in compliance with local election laws. It’s encouraging to see open data and collaboration going to helping those folks exercise their well-earned vote.
You can read more about the Great American Hackathon on the Sunlight Foundation Blog and also check out the Voting Information Project.
Joe Trippi is a Why Tuesday? advisory board member. This post was first published at JoeTrippi.com.
December 16th, 2009
Voter ID is a controversial topic that we’ve taken on here before. We even shot a vlog (watch the video) to see how long it would take to get a voter ID if you lived in California without a drivers license or car, and it wasn’t easy.
In a new paper for the Harvard Law and Policy Review, Why Tuesday? advisory board member Tova Wang and Frederic Schaffer say that the “everyone else is doing it” argument about voter ID is not quite true.
One of the claims made by advocates of Indiana-like voter identification laws is that other countries require identification to vote, so therefore the United States should too. “If ID cards threaten democracy, why does almost every democracy except us require them, and why are their elections conducted better than ours?” one prominent supporter has asked rhetorically. Senator Mitch McConnell, one of the major champions in Congress of strict voter identification laws, has used the same argument in pushing for such legislation. In the Supreme Court oral argument regarding Indiana’s law, Justice Alito queried, “If [impersonation fraud] is not a problem at all, how do you account for the fact that . . . many other countries around the world have voter ID requirements?”
The “everyone else is doing it” claim is exaggerated. While many countries require identification for voting, some do not. Countries that do not require identification include Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (with the exception of Northern Ireland). In Norway, Ireland, and the Netherlands, voters are required to present identification only if it is requested by a poll worker. In Switzerland, every registered voter is sent a registration card prior to an election, and if the voter brings her registration card to the polling place, no additional identification is needed.
To read their complete research paper in PDF form, download it here. Hat tip to Rick Hasen for bringing my attention to this article.
Related:
Latinos pledge opposition to proposed CA voter ID law
December 8th, 2009
That’s me on the big screen (from Los Angeles) having an iChat about Why Tuesday? and American voter participation with Diana Laufenberg’s high school juniors (in Philadelphia) last week. You can read more about our chat, and how we met on Twitter, on Diana’s blog. Here’s a preview:
Last Tuesday (how fitting), Jacob iChatted in at the end of the school day to 60 juniors all jammed into my classroom. They spent the next 45 minutes trading ideas and questions about voting, civic motivations and US history. It was spectacular. When we debriefed on Thursday, many of the kids felt like this was a wonderful way to ‘have class’. A majority of hands went up when I asked if they would like me to try and arrange for other experts to iChat in. When I asked them what they liked about the iChat, they were most impressed that during their conversation with Jacob, he didn’t just talk *at* them. They genuinely felt like he was interested in their ideas and the process of sharing thoughts, rather than just hearing himself talk. (so good)
Be sure to follow me, Why Tuesday? and Diana on Twitter.
November 23rd, 2009
NEW YORK, NY – Predictions of low voter turnout were abound prior to Election Day 2009. Perhaps it is day we vote. Or possibly it is the way we vote. Most agree that our voting system needs a seriously overdue upgrade.
Nearly two years ago, Why Tuesday’s wise co-founder, Norman J. Ornstein put forth, “If Apple or Google — or both — stepped up to the plate to give us the iVote or Voogle, they could save the credibility of American democracy.”
Last year we posed Mr. Ornstein’s idea to Google’s Sergey Brin… watch his answer here.
Just in the nick of time for our annual Thanksgiving-table argument about election reform! Read the rest of this entry »
November 13th, 2009
NEW YORK, NY – I was digging up 2009 voter turnout statistics and came across a user comment on CNN’s Political Ticker. This comment makes all of us at Why Tuesday? really gratified despite our nation’s increasingly low voter turnout. The comment is in in response to an article about low voter turnout.
Comments on the post are now closed, so here’s our response:
Dear Spirit of America (whoever you are),
Although we don’t believe most folks are afraid of a democracy breakout, we at Why Tuesday? often pray for a democracy breakout before elections, bedtime and large meals.
Thank you again. We could not have said it better ourselves!
Sincerely,
Why Tuesday?
November 13th, 2009
NEW YORK, NY – On Tuesday November 3rd, a minority of New Yorkers ventured to the polls to cast their ballots. There were more than a handful of elected posts up for grab, most notably Mayor, City Comptroller, Public Advocate and District Attorney. Much was at stake in these elections, not only in the City, but also in Virginia and New Jersey. Be it a weak economic outlook, increasing unemployment, health care, gun control, education, gay rights or a slew of other imperative issues, City voters by-and-large decided to stay quiet, stay home, and not vote. Read the rest of this entry »
November 11th, 2009
Last month, as I let you know in advance here, I participated in a panel at the 140 Characters Conference at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. The panel was called Hollywood Politics: The Making of a Twitter Cause Celeb and it was moderated by blogger Maegan Carberry.
We talked about how, in Maegan’s words, “Twitter has allowed real life celebrities and the newly created class of Twitter celebrities to participate in the political process.” My co-panelists were Variety Managing Editor Ted Johnson, Causecast director of strategic partnerships James Sutandyo and Participant Media’s Wendy Cohen.
I tried to stress how the work we do at Why Tuesday? towards increasing voter participation and turnout in elections goes hand-in-hand with technology like Twitter. Watch the complete panel discussion and read a recap some of my main points after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
October 27th, 2009
Greetings to those of you finding your way here by way of the 140 Characters Conference (#140conf) at the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars and if you’re not new here, our video coverage of the 2007 CNN Democratic Debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, in Los Angeles. I’m speaking today at 3:35PM PT on the panel Hollywood Politics: The Making of a Twitter Cause Celeb. My co-panelists are Wendy Cohen from Participant Media and Ted Johnson from Variety, and it’s being moderated by blogger Meagan Carberry.
First thing’s first, I hope you’re already interacting with me via Why Tuesday? on Twitter. If you’re not, please start now.
For those of you that have no idea what the #140conf is, here are some details:
At the #140conf events, we look at twitter as a platform and as a language we speak. Over time it will neither be the only platform nor the only language. #140conf is not an event about microblogging or the place where people share twitter “tips and techniques” but rather where we explore the effects of the emerging real-time Internet on Business.
The original scope of #140conf was to explore “the effects of twitter on: Celebrity, “The Media”, Advertising and (maybe) Politics.” Over time the scope expanded to include Sports, Music, The Arts, Sciences and more. Given the location of #140conf:LA, this event will have a special focus on the use of twitter in the Entertainment Industry.
American voter participation ranks near the bottom of all countries in the world. Why Tuesday? was founded in 2005 to honor the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and make the state of America’s voting system an issue our elected officials cannot afford to avoid. In 2006, our co-founder Bill Wachtel started the Get Out The Why? contest, seizing on the emergence of YouTube in the political scene to put candidates and elected officials on the spot about election reform by asking them one simple question: why do we vote on Tuesday, smack in the middle of the work week?
That’s how I got involved with Why Tuesday?, and after meeting with Bill, we decided to go a step further and make Why Tuesday? not just a 501(c)3 that advocates a dialogue about election reform, but one that forces the issue by using social media. We put our heads together with Joe Trippi, who linked us up with the folks at Echo Ditto and Jim Brayton. On September 25th, 2007, we relaunched the website based around the Why Tuesday? Candidate Challenge. We set out to get every 2008 presidential candidate on the record, on video, about voting in America, and we did (including President Obama and Senator McCain).
From the moment we relaunched the site, Twitter was a part of our platform. At first we weren’t sure how to use it, but looking back, it provided a memorable scrapbook of the 2008 campaign and as Twitter developed, so did our use of it. I tweeted before and my interview with President Obama at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and from a horse-drawn carriage outside the ABC News debate in Manchester, New Hampshire.
As the campaign progressed, we joined forces with a major coalition of nonprofits and news organizations to be a part of the Twitter Vote Report, a tool designed specifically to find voting hot spots on Election Day. This complimented nicely our participation in Video Your Vote, on which we partnered with PBS and YouTube to create the largest library of polling place video ever. Every video was marked on a map, and the highlights were aired on PBS on Election Day. Perhaps this year, the two efforts can combine. One thing is for sure, there’s lots of room for improvement in our voting system, and coverage of it, and Twitter will certainly be a part.
Photo of the Kodak Theater via patrick kiteley on Flickr.
October 23rd, 2009
“Disruptive innovation” is what we need to fix America’s broken voting system, Mitch Kapor, the election reformer and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Lotus 1-2-3, said on Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
Kapor made his remarks at an event sponsored by the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation (OSDV) at the home of Hollywood film producer Lawrence Bender. The event was intended to introduce the Hollywood audience to the OSDV’s Trust the Vote project and its mission, to “re-invent how America votes in a digital democracy.”
Kapor was joined on a panel by Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan and friends of Why Tuesday? OSDF co-founder Gregory Miller, Heather Smith from Rock the Vote and CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen. Kim Zetter covered the event for Wired Magazine, and said that the main piece of news to come from the event was that the OSDV’s open-source voting code, the type of “disruptive innovation” Kapor was talking about, is now ready for a transparent public review. Read the rest of this entry »
September 10th, 2009
If New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has his way Americans would be automatically registered to vote, they would be voting on the weekend, and it would be easier to gain access to the ballot if you wanted to run for office in New York City.
Today Mayor Bloomberg announced his “Easy to Vote & Easy to Run” election reform plan which includes an endorsement of Rep. Steve Israel and Sen. Herb Kohl’s Weekend Voting Act, a piece of legislation that we’ve talked a lot about here. The data-friendly mayor also wants to create a Democracy Index in New York City to help target, as he has done with the 3-1-1 system in New York City, problem voting areas throughout New York’s five boroughs.
Why Tuesday? board member Norman J. Ornstein is quoted in Mayor Bloomberg’s press release announcing his plan, saying “this set of reforms is a huge step forward to making the voting system work and revitalizing democracy in New York. It should serve as a model for elections across the country.” The Mayor’s complete press release is below. Read the rest of this entry »
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