The afternoon before early voting began in the 2010 midterm elections, a crowd of people gathered in the offices of a Houston Tea Party group called the King Street Patriots. They soon formed a line that snaked out the door of the Patriots’ crumbling storefront and down the block, past the neighboring tattoo parlor. The volunteers, all of whom had been trained by the Patriots to work as poll watchers, had come to collect their polling-place assignments.
Is there a “state of emergency” over voting rights in America? That was the declaration of a coalition of civil rights, faith-based and social justice organizations and groups representing communities of color in a conference call on Wednesday, just in time for National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25.
At a minimum, we can expect “poll-watchers” to come up with enough “documented” examples of “voter fraud” to support a general post-election effort to de-legitimize the results.
But evidence is mounting that it is the last point — the fact that people move — that is key, and that past assumptions about why tenants don't vote may be incorrect.
Political scientists who have been re-evaluating reams of voting data have found that whether a tenant votes is less about political will and more about the cumbersome and at times elusive process of registering.
The last few weeks have not brought good news for those of us wanting a future powered by clean energy. Thesouthern portion of the TransCanada pipeline is under construction. On top of that, New York State will lift its moratorium and allow fracking to occur in the state.
To make sure that no voter is subjected to intimidation when they hit the polls next month, one organization is dispensing military veterans to booths across the country.
In 2008, young people—particularly those of color—endured more voting restrictions than any other youth voting demographic that came before, yet black youth turnout hit its highest rate in history.
Several developments in the past three years suggest that the case for upholding section 5 against constitutional challenge has been strengthened compared to the situation in 2009.
Lorraine C. Minnite, a Rutgers University political scientist and a senior fellow at Demos, a liberal think tank, looked for a turnout effect in a 2009 paper she co-authored with Columbia University political scientist Robert S. Erikson. They didn't turn up definitive evidence, concluding, "our data and tools are not up to the task of making a compelling statistical argument for an effect."
Challenge to halt implementation of an Indiana state law that would have purged voters without notice based on unreliable third-party data from the Crosscheck program.
It's a sign of our shadowy times that the latest regulatory "reform" bill hasn't been laughed out of Washington. Same goes for the latest bankers' complaint, this time about being asked to cover their own bets. And if you think it's bad now, wait and see what happens if Romney takes over.
Think "global catastrophe."
While bank-friendly politicians offer insipid legislation, the world economy is still at risk. And it could get worse.
5. Will old-school voter intimidation and suppression come into play?
This refers to all the steps that have been taken by the GOP in recent years to complicate the voting process, discourage participation and scare off new voters.
Of course, no one should attempt to vote if he or she is not legally registered, but documented cases of actual voter fraud are rare. True the Vote is aiming to train as many as one million poll “observers,” and the scope of that effort far exceeds any real problem of illegal voting; instead, it seems intended to intimidate voters. As True the Vote’s top organizer reportedly told recruits during a training session in South Florida, their job is to make voters feel as if they are “driving and seeing the police following you.” This isn’t a civics lesson.
Just sixty-one individuals gave $285.2 million to Super PACs in the 2012 elections, contributing the same amount as 1,425,500 small grassroots donors to the major party presidential candidates, according to a new report from Demos and U.S. PIRG.
This report, the fourth in a series, focuses on "the overwhelming influence of a tiny number of wealthy donors."
Despite President Obama’s important, even landmark, accomplishments, by the time November 6 arrived, many Americans were disappointed with his first term. They expected him to be a “transformational” president who would somehow, single-handedly, change Washington’s political culture.
Henry Ford famously decided in 1914 to pay many of his workers the then incredible sum of five dollars a day, which was substantially higher than the prevailing wage at the time.
Walmart executives worried about the recent spate of labor activity against the retailer would probably tell you that they cannot possibly offer higher wages to their employees while maintaining their brand identifier of low prices. They offer what the market will bear in terms of wages, they would say, and anything more would represent a loss for their business, and would impact shoppers on tight budgets. It’s just not possible.
Retail companies don't have to choose between high wages and high profits, argues a new report from the researchers at Demos.
In Retail’s Hidden Potential, policy analyst Catherine Ruetschlin says that higher wages across the retail industry would create jobs and reduce poverty without cutting significantly into employers’ profit margins.
Black Friday has heaped new pressure on big box stores to bump up worker pay, with a group of Walmart employees plotting a walkout on the country’s biggest shopping day and the think tank Demos releasing a study Monday that touts the benefits of higher wages.