Long-standing efforts to increase the number of low-income voters have been paying off. Several voting rights groups point to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission that show an increase in new voter registrations coming from public-assistance agencies. Since 1993, the National Voter Registration Act, known as the “Motor Voter Bill,” requires that voter registration be offered at DMV offices and public-assistance agencies. At the time of its passage, the law was heralded for empowering poor and working people, while detractors said it could lead to registering dead ... Read More
Scandals Do Drive Voters — When Abuse of Power Is Involved
November 7, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Political scandals are, in a sense, like car crashes: They attract our attention because they bring out our morbid curiosity. Will this be the end of a big-time politician’s career? Or will the voters simply shrug? Newly published research suggests the answer depends upon the type of misbehavior that has been uncovered. It finds that while sex scandals tend to get the most media coverage, they have the least impact on voters’ views. “On average, financial scandals are worse than moral ones, and abuses of power amplify the negative effects,” said University of Illinois political ... Read More
Can Obama Keep His Technology Edge in 2012?
October 20, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Back during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama's staff often kicked off his stump speeches with a few words from a warm-up act. A young man would walk out on stage. He'd say something like, "Boy, it's good to see you all here! Candidate Obama is about two miles away and will be here shortly. Let's tell him how much we're looking forward to seeing him ..." and the young man would then lead the crowd in the collective exercise of sending Candidate Obama a welcome text message from a hundred or a thousand phones simultaneously. "I kept shaking my head, saying, 'You all are falling ... Read More
Third Parties: The Avant-Garde of Change
October 5, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Throughout American history, many big changes in public policy — or in the country, for that matter — have been presaged by agitation from little-celebrated actors in the political process: third parties. "If you look at the range of issues that third parties were out in front of before the Democrats and the Republicans would touch them with a 10-foot pole," said political scientist David Gillespie, "I could take you down through page after page, including some very important ones." The Liberty and Free Soil parties wanted abolition before the mainstream did. The Prohibition Party ... Read More
Website Demystifies Redistricting
July 9, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The once-a-decade reshuffling mandated by the Constitution now has a comprehensive source that helps to explain its complex details. Justin Levitt, an expert on election law and a professor at Los Angeles’ Loyola Law School has launched All About Redistricting, an interactive website that helps the average person understand all the intricacies of redistricting. With redistricting being a hot topic, and its fairness routinely questioned, the launch of Levitt’s website is particularly timely. The site offers a state-by-state guide that explains individual rules, regulations and ... Read More
Hidden Patterns in Presidential Voting
July 6, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
With the Republican field finally solidifying, the 2012 presidential campaign season is finally off to the races. For the next 16 months, political pundits will spend hour after hour analyzing the most minor twist and turns in the campaigns — even though almost all of the day-to-day political zigs and zags will make no difference to voters in the end. But what if even the big issues — like the economy and the multiple wars that we are engaged in — didn't matter to voters either? According to Nathan Collins, a political scientist at the Santa Fe Institute, if you look at voting ... Read More
Following the Money a Year After Citizens United
January 19, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Last January, critics of the controversial Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision — which knocked down long-running restrictions on corporate campaign money in elections — envisioned an ominous scene. Anonymous corporate millions would flood into closely contested elections, elbowing out the influence of average voters, warned many (including the president). Now, at the decision’s one-year anniversary, hard data is beginning to bear out the grave forecasts, contradicting even some of the Supreme Court’s own predictions. In the wake of Citizens United, outside groups in last ... Read More
How Much Am I Bid on This Donkey (or Elephant)?
December 14, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The tax debate in Washington this week has a tangible impact on every family in the country — one that can be measured in literal dollars and cents. (In fact, you can calculate your personal impact here.) The scenario is a testament to the fact that outcomes of elections do matter; if Congress had a different makeup of Democrats and Republicans today, that dollar amount in your bank account next year likely would look different, too. Because of this, it seems logical to think that when people vote, the consequences should have some real value to them. Congress sets policies over Medicare, ... Read More
Reversing the Ebbing Tide of Elected Women
November 9, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Women scored some significant "firsts" in the election last week. Three female candidates — all Republicans, two of them women of color — were elected for the first time to the governor's offices in South Carolina, New Mexico and Oklahoma. In Alaska, meanwhile, Lisa Murkowski appears poised to become the first write-in candidate to win a Senate seat in more than 50 years. But beyond those outliers, 2010 was a big disappointment for women, and one that stings all the more given the trends of the last two decades. "2010 has proven to be really anything but a banner year for women in ... Read More
