Senator Bernie Sanders has a great idea as to how to bring more people out to vote.

Courtesy of The Hill:  

Midterm election turnout is historically lower than presidential years, but preliminary returns indicate that Tuesday's vote saw the lowest participation rate since the 1940s. 

“Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the time and opportunity to vote,” Sanders said Friday in a statement. “While this would not be a cure-all, it would indicate a national commitment to create a more vibrant democracy.” 

Sanders’s Vermont had its lowest voter turnout in recorded history, with 43.7 percent of registered voters participating. 

Sanders plans to file a bill once Congress returns next week that would add Election Day to the list of federal holidays. Since many jobs take federal holidays off, the move could reduce the costs associated with voting and free up voters to make it to the polls. 

“We should not be satisfied with a ‘democracy’ in which more than 60 percent of our people don't vote and some 80 percent of young people and low-income Americans fail to vote,” he said. 

“We can and must do better than that.”

Actually Sanders is not alone in this idea, according to the article Hillary and John Kerry sponsored a bill to do the same thing back in 2005 when they were both still in the Senate.

I think it's a great idea and I would like to see other incentives to vote as well.

Perhaps providing a tax incentive might be a good start. Americans seem to love those.

Was the 2014 loss due voter apathy on the side of progressives, or was there something else at play?

Courtesy of The Intercept:  

On Tuesday, older, white voters — who traditionally support Republicans — went to the polls in droves, while turnout among traditionally Democratic groups — the young, the minoritized, and women — was down. Indeed, overall turnout declined to an estimated 36.6% of eligible voters, the lowest rate of participation since the 1940s, despite the $3 billion spent by candidates, political parties, and super PACs. 

Yes, President Barack Obama’s poor performance and approval rating undoubtedly played a role in the lower turnout. But the evidence is piling up that systematic voter suppression, including voter ID laws and dubious vote-fraud prevention software, played a significant part in keeping people from casting ballots, as well.

The Intercept goes on to point out irregularities in both Texas and Georgia.  

Georgia, it must also be noted, is one of 27 states using the controversial software Crosscheck to weed out supposed voter fraud. Al Jazeera, which recently finished a months-long investigation of the program, found an astonishing 7 million Americans suspected of voter fraud on the Crosscheck lists. That despite the fact that voter fraud is almost unbelievably rare. One dogged investigator, a professor focused on election administration at Loyola University Law School, found just 31 credible incidents between 2000 and mid 2014, nationwide. 

Crosscheck scours the names of voters who live in the 27 states, and if a first and last name matches in two states both persons are flagged and purged. The surnames most likely to be flagged? “The lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim — ones common among minorities”, Al Jazeera reported. “List matching is an inaccurate science that burdens, disproportionately, minority voters”, said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Weiser also claimed that voter complaints to her group’s hotline were higher this year than ever before.

I think most of us have known that our voting rights have been under attack since as least 2000, and  it seems that as time goes on the Republican's ability to rob us of our fundamental right to vote is getting more sophisticated and harder to track.

If we are going to have any hope of electing a representative government in this country we are going to have to do something very serious about reforming our voting structure.

Are Democrats going too far in using the Ferguson shooting to drive blacks to the polls?

Courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:  

Democrats and civil rights groups are trying to raise turnout among African-American voters around the country today by invoking a familiar and painful image: Ferguson. 

The civil rights group ColorofChange.org said Monday it has distributed fliers to black voters in seven states, including Illinois, with a photo of protests in Ferguson overwritten by the headline, “Enough.” 

“The people we elect on November 4th will be in charge of our police departments,” the flier says. “If we want to end senseless killings, like Michael Brown in Ferguson, we need to vote.” The flyer also says conservatives “hijacked the Supreme Court and struck down key provisions in the Voting Rights Act,” and accuses Republicans of trying to impeach President Barack Obama. 

The fliers, along with similar ones by Democratic Party groups, have raised debates over whether the invocation of the death of Michael Brown, killed by Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson, and that of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, is fair politics or race-baiting.

I think that this might have been what Ben Stein was alluding to in the post yesterday that inspired him to call the President the "most racist President there has ever been in America." Though how this tactic can be linked back to the President is unknown to me.

I have to say that I completely understand why this seems like a reasonable way in which to inspire minorities to come to the polls, however I am also aware that it might come off as a little unseemly and insensitive.

However I will leave it up to you all to share your thoughts and to tell us if this goes too far, or not far enough.

Don't let this be you.

The conservatives expect us to stay home, the pundits expect us to fail our representatives, and Koch brothers have spent a fortune to convince us that we are wasting our time and the election is already lost to us.

I want to prove all of them wrong.

How about you?

What we need much more of right now.

Finally something that describes me to a "T."

I need a t-shirt with this on it.

GOP suggests to Iowa voters that everybody will know if they do not vote Republican.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

The GOP is trying to convince Iowa voters on Facebook that their neighbors will know if they voted Republican. 

Screenshots of Facebook ads, promoted by the official Facebook page of the Republican National Committee feature an ominous message: “NOTICE: All Voting Is Public.” The ad tell voters that “In a few months, Iowa will release the list of individual who voted in this election.” Most troublingly, the ad includes an arial view of a neighborhood with checkmarks indicating that “These People Voted GOP.” 

It is true that voter participation in elections in public information. But how a someone voted, including what party they voted for, is not. The secret ballot has long been considered a hallmark of American democracy.

Interesting tactic don't you think?

Made even more so by the fact that something similar was being done up here in Alaska, only with letters instead of Facebook posts.

Similar tactics are also being used in Kentucky:

In a move that Democrats are lambasting as a voter suppression tactic, Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign and its GOP allies are distributing a mailer to Kentucky voters with the title "ELECTION VIOLATION NOTICE." 

It warns of "a possible fraud" and reads, "You are at risk of acting on fraudulent information." It says it's paid for by the Republican Party of Kentucky and authorized by the McConnell Senate Committee '14. 

The mailer is ultimately a rather creative attack on Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, telling the voter that she is feeding them "fraudulent information" and "blatant lies solely to deceive Kentucky voters" about McConnell and her own candidacy. 

Clearly these are yet more attempts to suppress the vote by Republicans who realize that the fewer people voting means a better chance for their candidates.

Just another reason to make damn sure that you all get out and vote.

Remember if the Republicans don't want you to do it, you KNOW it must be a good idea.