Wednesday thoughts...
A couple of interesting press releases arrived in my mailbox the last couple of days and I'd be interesting in hearing your thoughts on these ideas.
First..a Texas-based, national, non-profit grout - Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT.org) - is conducting a national petition drive to have Election Day declared a national holiday, or to move the traditional Tuesday voting to a weekend. The aim here is to increase voter turnout.
Second...another group - draftobama.org - is launching a national petitioning drive today to draft Democratic Illinois Sen. Barrack Obama as a 2008 presidential candidate.
First..a Texas-based, national, non-profit grout - Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT.org) - is conducting a national petition drive to have Election Day declared a national holiday, or to move the traditional Tuesday voting to a weekend. The aim here is to increase voter turnout.
Second...another group - draftobama.org - is launching a national petitioning drive today to draft Democratic Illinois Sen. Barrack Obama as a 2008 presidential candidate.
posted by Ray Hackett at 10:22 AM
4 Comments:
The other thing weekend voting might do is increase the pool of available poll workers. Many of those who currently work at the polls are retired or those who take the day off from work. Moving elections to weekends might make it easier for others to get involved - giving those who do it now a bit of a break on what is always a long day.
Why is the press so impressed with this person?
Is it merely because liberals are obsessed with race and this guy just so happens to be Black and got elected to one senate term? Is that all that can be said of him?
I have not heard him say anything of consequence and being in the Senate is certainly no test of leadership.
We need a leader in the next President more than we need a "first" woman or “first” Black president.
Margaret Thatcher wasn't elected Prime Minister because she was a woman. She will be the first one to tell you that.
She was elected because she was the right person at the right time.
Moving Election Day would require a Constitutional Amendment and I don't see that happening anytime soon. I think it's absolutely ridiculous to move Election Day to a weekend. They have experimented with Special Elections on weekends in the past (29th State Senate in January of 1993 is one example) and if anything, the voter turnout was WORSE that average. There is no need for yet another national holiday. As far as availability of poll workers, moving Election Day to a weekend will have little to no effect on that. I'm one of the Registrars in my town and the pool of available poll workers is not a problem, at least around here anyway.
People have all kinds of excuses for not voting or wanting to work at the polls so moving Election Day will just provide them an opportunity to invent a whole new series of excuses.
From the matt.org website:
"Some prominent elected officials have already joined the call to designate Election Day a national holiday thereby providing working adults with an opportunity to vote on a day without work conflicts."
Presently, the polls are open on Election Day from 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m., a full FOURTEEN hours so how on earth does this not provide "working adults" an opportunity to vote?
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