Always look on the bright side of scandal
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Wed Oct 11, 2006 at 04:04:06 PM EST
'Some things in life are bad,'
'They can really make you mad,'
'Other things just make you swear and curse,'
'When you're chewing on life's gristle,'
'Don't grumble, give a whistle,'
'And this'll help things turn out for the best, and...'
I'll be honest with you all: like a lot of people who work in politics, I walk a fine line between optimism and pessimism. My outlook changes with the headlines, and sometimes it's hard to keep upbeat about things when it seems like society and government are falling to pieces around you.
But you never know where the silver lining is going to show up. Monty Python had it right in the above song - sometimes you have have to look at the bright side of life.
So among the scandals of today? What, you're probably asking, could possibly be the bright side of Pagegate, Abramoff, Cunningham, Jefferson, and all the rest? Well, it's simple:
All of a sudden, everyone's interested in politics.
Politics is a water-cooler topic, a dinner-table subject, an issue to discuss after Sunday services, and this year the interest of American voters is at its highest level in more than a decade.
NYT pulls no punches over Missouri voter ID law
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Thu Aug 10, 2006 at 03:40:26 PM EST
Whatever your opinion of the New York Times, you can grant that they certainly know how to make their point. In an editorial today, they take aim at Missouri's voter ID law, calling it as they see it - voter suppression for partisan gain.
The Republican legislators who pushed through Missouri's ID law earlier this year said they wanted to deter fraud, but that claim falls apart on close inspection. Missouri's new ID rules -- and similar ones adopted last year in Indiana and Georgia -- are intended to deter voting by blacks, poor people and other groups that are less likely to have driver's licenses. Georgia's law has been blocked by the courts, and the others should be too...
...Missourians who have driver's licenses will have little trouble voting, but many who do not will have to go to considerable trouble to get special ID's. The supporting documents needed to get these, like birth certificates, often have fees attached, so some Missourians will have to pay to keep voting. It is likely that many people will not jump all of the bureaucratic hurdles to get the special ID, and will become ineligible to vote.
As many as 200,000 Missouri voters do not have a government-issue photo ID. The "imposter voting" that ID supporters say they're trying to combat is all but nonexistent. Most cases of reported voter fraud involve absentee ballots, and this law doesn't tackle that question. The Times editorial staff draw only one conclusion:
Unduly onerous voter ID laws violate equal protection, and when voters have to pay to get the ID's, they are an illegal poll tax. They are also an insult to democracy, because their goal is to have elections in which eligible voters are turned away.
One Person, One Vote, One Million Dollars??
By emorgan
Posted on Mon Jul 17, 2006 at 12:54:32 PM EST
Residents of Arizona may have a few more reasons to go to the polls this November... about a million to be exact. Mark Osterloh, the NYT-dubbed "political gadfly" behind the Arizona Voter Reward Act, has collected 185,902 signatures for a ballot initiative that qualifies anyone and everyone who votes in a general Arizona election for a chance to win $1 Million.
The signatures (far more than the requisite 122,612) and the subsequent approval from the AZ Secretary of State mean that the initiative will be voted on this November, and since approximately 2 million people voted in Arizona's last general election, the chances of winning the million dollar prize are about one in two-million--considerably better odds than winning Powerball (odds: 1 in 146,107,962).
However, Osterloh's initiative has already received some strong criticism from some who see the million-dollar-vote idea as "crass commercialization" and others who find it simply illegal. Critics of the initiative argue that the higher number of voters guaranteed by this initiative do not necessarily mean a better outcome for the state and the country. Others cite Arizona law which threatens prison time for up to one year for anyone who, "makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote".
So far, Arizona political leaders have refused to take a stance on the issue.
Source: NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/us/17voter.html
UPI
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060717-020203-3196r
What if they threw an election and no one came?
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Thu Jun 15, 2006 at 02:20:43 PM EST
So Tuesday saw some primary elections across the country. Now, primary turnout is traditionally pretty low. In Virginia, however, voter turnout reached embarassing lows -- only 3% of eligible voters statewide went to the polls to decide which Democrat would face Republican Senator George Allen in November. Three percent!
Only 49 people in Norton bothered to cast a ballot for who will challenge Sen. George Allen this fall.
That was the lowest turnout of any jurisdiction in the commonwealth. Pretty much everyone else in this city of 4,000 was over at the Best Friend Festival, a week-long celebration featuring bubble-gum-blowing, watermelon-seed-spitting and limbo contests. That evening, the festival drew 2,000 people to express their fundamental right to karaoke.
Election? "I heard nobody mention it," says Joyce Payne, chief executive of the Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the annual festival. "I'm sure it was important to people who are very concerned about politics." If you can find such a person.
This Washington Post column has more details on the race, including the interesting dichotomy between Northern Virginia and the rest of the state, as well as the implications of such low turnout for the campaigns involved. Check it out if you're interested. Which, if you're in Virginia, will probably only be about 3% of you.
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