voting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 29, 2009
4:28 PM

CONTACT: ACLU
James Freedland, ACLU, (212) 519-7829 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Tia T. Gordon, Advancement Project, (202) 728-9557 or (202) 906-0149

ACLU and Advancement Project Challenge Unlawful Disenfranchisement of Michigan Resident

Wife of US Serviceman Was Target of Unlawful Statewide Voter Purge Program

DETROIT - January 29 - Today, Advancement Project, the American Civil Liberties Union and Pepper Hamilton LLP filed a motion on behalf of Lisa A. Blehm - a Michigan resident who was improperly disenfranchised in the November election - that would allow her to join a previously filed voting rights lawsuit challenging the state's unlawful voter purge programs. The motion was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, Michigan Bureau of Elections Director Christopher M. Thomas and Standish City Clerk Rebecca Lakin.

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The ACLU conserves America's original civic values working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in the United States by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

ACLU Links:

Posted in civil liberties, voting

US Voting Access A Work in Progress

Last week the Pew Center on the States sponsored a summit called "Voting in America - The Road Ahead," which detailed our ballot booth access inconsistencies. And it wasn't just about Florida's shenanigans in 2000 or Ohio's in 2004. They called for systemic change of our election process and the elimination of voter disenfranchisement.

The problem is, we've got a backward way of voting in this country. Here, people have to register to vote. That may sound perfectly reasonable but it isn't. It only allows us to pretend that we've eliminated all barriers to voting.

Posted in voting

The Trouble With Appointing Caroline Kennedy

Anyone who purports to be seriously concerned that an untested Caroline Kennedy might "inherit" the U.S. Senate seat from New York has not been paying attention.

Posted in Politics, voting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 15, 2008
4:35 PM

CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Electoral College and the Right to Vote

WASHINGTON - December 15 - Today, the electors of the Electoral College meet to vote for the next president.

MAYME HUBERT
Hubert is an elector currently in Sacramento, and will be engaged in voting from 12:45-3:15 PT. She said today: "I'm honored to have been chosen by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, but I'd rather we voted for a president by popular vote." Hubert was profiled in a recent piece in the local Marin Independent Journal.

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Posted in voting

Instant Runoff Voting

Now that our country has elected a 21st century president, we should reconsider our 18th century electoral system.

Posted in voting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 13, 2008
2:31 PM

CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Election Lessons

WASHINGTON - November 13 -

HARVEY WASSERMAN

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Posted in election 2008, voting

Dysfunctional Election Process Needs to Be Repaired

Appearing on the HBO talk show "Real Time With Bill Maher" a few weeks before last week's election, actor Tim Robbins urged voters to stand their ground when it came to demanding their right to cast ballots: "Refuse provisional ballots. They're throwing those out. They can throw those out. If that's your last resort, take it, but fight in the polling place to vote. It's your right as an American. You have every right to vote if you're registered. And if you're not on the rolls and something went wrong, document it.

Posted in voting

The Disenfranchisement of My Daughter

Growing up in Mississippi and North Carolina in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I have vivid memories of African-Americans hoping to participate in their first election being turned away at the polls, denied their most basic right to vote.

Little did I know that near fifty years later, in 2008, my daughter would similarly be prevented from voting.

Posted in beyond obama, election 2008, voting

Electoral Reform on the Ballot: Wins for Instant Runoff Voting and More

2008 was historic in terms of the election of the first African American to be president and the largest number of voters at the polls in our history. But in the modern era, there is no excuse for privately-owned voting machines that breed mistrust, confusing ballot designs, polling places with long lines, voter registration laws that leave nearly a third of Americans off the rolls, an Electoral College system that undercuts equality and voting methods that suppress voter choice and stifle fair representation.

Posted in voting

Our Fragile Dream

It had already been a long day for me, and for the country, when I rode the train downtown to Grant Park on the night of Nov. 4. History was crowding against my thoughts — my car was full of joyful, youthful, rock-the-vote noise — as I looked out the window into the Chicago night and saw a bright orange (papaya-colored, really) quarter moon hovering over the horizon, beautiful and strange beyond reckoning.

I had never seen anything quite like it and was shaken with a sense of wonder: Where am I? Am I dreaming?

Posted in beyond obama, election 2008, voting