NewsTrust - Election Reform - Most Recent Stories: Opinion

The real reason Obama is not making much progress

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 20 (Opinion) - So far, Obama has tried to co-opt the corporations into his agenda by ensuring they will profit from any changes, but this inevitably waters down the proposals, often to the point of uselessness. The Cap and Trade legislation before Congress, for example, will barely limit carbon emissions at all because it has been gutted to please the polluters.

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Tom Coburn picks on political science

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Daniel W. Drezner - Oct. 08 (Comment) - OK, dear readers, I want you to close your eyes and imagine a world in which your entire knowledge of political behavior emanated only from CNN, pollsters, pundits, historians, candidates, and political parties.

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The Trial of John Roberts

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jeffrey Rosen - Sep. 13 (Opinion) - A campaign finance case in the Supreme Court could tell us if Chief Justice Roberts will be remembered as the next John Marshall or Earl Warren.

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A Threat to Fair Elections

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Sep. 08 (Editorial) - The Supreme Court has upheld the limitations on corporate campaign expenditures in the past. If they open the floodgates now, corporations will have a huge say in who wins federal elections.

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Why do we allow the US to act like a failed state on climate change

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By George Monbiot - Jun. 26 (Opinion) - There are mind-boggling concessions to the biofuels industry, including a promise not to investigate its wider environmental impacts. There's a provision to allow industry to use 2bn tonnes of carbon offsets a year, which include highly unstable carbon sinks like crop residues left in the soil (another concession won by the powerful farm lobby). These offsets are so generous that if all of them are used, US industry will have to make no carbon cuts at all until 2026.

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No Country for Close Calls

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nate Silver, Andrew Gelman - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - Contests as close as these — not to mention Florida’s electoral adventures in 2000 — have led to an impression that the margin between Democrats and Republicans is pretty narrow. That is why when Barack Obama defeated John McCain by 7.3 points last November, historically a fairly average margin, the victory was widely hailed as a landslide.

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Voting technology facts fight conspiracy theories

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Examiner.com - By Jan Tyler - Mar. 13 (Opinion) - Election technology should be studied by unbiased scientists, whose voter registrations shoud be disclosed. Instead of reverting to paper ballot systems, legislators and officials should focus on finding modern technology to administer elections. Otherwise, our elections will be vulnerable, not to imaginary techological glitches, but to human nature.

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Voter ID: $1.5 million spent on 30 indictments?

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Austin American-Statesman - By CHuck Lindell - Mar. 10 (Opinion) - Opponents: Attorney General Greg Abbott has spent $1.5 million investigating election fraud, finding very little. The cost is closer to $690,000 to prosecute 30 election code cases since 2006 — a number that will grow because seven cases are still pending, according to figures from Abbott’s office.

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Online voting system would require scrutiny

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

theolympian.com - Feb. 15 (Editorial) - The federal government, as part of the Help America Vote Act, was assigned the task of creating a safe and secure Internet voting system. After creation of a system that used secure military lines and encrypted ballots, technical experts were called in to review the proposed system check for vulnerabilities. In 2004, after the technology experts filed their report, the federal government canceled the pilot voting project. And since that time, very little government effort has been expended to create a fail-safe Internet voting system.

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Restore voting rights to ex-felons

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Gil Kerlikowske, John Lovick - Feb. 13 (Opinion) - Good law enforcement involves not only preventing and solving crimes but also helping those who have been released from prison return to society as law-abiding citizens.

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Franken-Coleman trial: Really, no kidding, Thursday is going to be a critical day

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

minnpost.com - By Jay Weiner - Feb. 11 (Opinion) - Here’s the tally in legal briefs both sides filed late today. Tuesday the judges asked the two campaigns their opinions on whether 19 discrete and some even esoteric categories of ballots should be counted. From signatures, to date of arrival, to the legality of witnesses, to wrong addresses...lots of little, itty-bitty things that, it seems, the law requires. The Coleman side told the judges in their documents today that 16 of the judges 19 categories should be counted. The Franken side said that two of the 19 categories should be counted.

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How Should We Get Big-Money Influence Out of Congressional Elections?

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Lawrence Lessig - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - progress will be stifled on every big issue until we solve the threshold problem: big-money interests having disproportional clout in our public debates. Later this month, I and others will announce a large grassroots campaign aimed at channeling the amazing desire for change that Americans are feeling right now into tangible and fundamental reform of our political system.

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Will Al Franken or Norm Coleman be able to claim to be "the people's choice"?

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Balkinization - By Sandy Levinson - Dec. 28 (Opinion) - There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents states from adopting voting systems that would do a better job of meeting democratic criteria. It's also the case, incidentally, that several of the Democratic wins in 2006 featured non-majority winners who might have been helped by the presence of third-party candidates who deprived Republicans of likely votes. This might have been the case in Montana, and Sen. Webb in Virginia, too, might have been helped by the third-party candidate. So there's nothing partisan in my critique of the voting system that Minnesota, like almost all other states, has adopted.

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For this we had a revolution?

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Balkinization - By Sandy Levinson - Dec. 18 (Comment) - I must also say, as a partisan Democrat, that I genuinely wonder whether Ms. Kennedy, whatever her strengths might be, would necessarily prevail over Peter King or some other well-financed Republican in 2010, who might well find a constituency to agree with another of Kristoff's comments, that Gov. Patterson is "said to be drawn to appointing Caroline Kennedy to the senate because she would be a good fund-raiser who could be reelected in 2010 and would cast a glow around him and his issues. But we don’t want a plutocracy, we want a democracy."

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For senate, Caroline or Carolyn?

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Dec. 17 (Opinion) - Caroline Kennedy strikes me as a very impressive woman with all the right priorities, such as education. But I also find it unseemly and undemocratic that she seems to have vaulted to the top of the Senate list by virtue of who her dad was. Seeing which way the wind is blowing, Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post has already endorsed her. Isn’t that sexist? Isn’t that the kind of system we rebelled against in 1776?

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GOP rush to change voting rules is ruse

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

daytondailynews.com - Nov. 29 (Editorial) - Elections are supposed to be political. The administration of them, however, should be resolutely nonpartisan. Rushing piecemeal bills through just so Republicans can say they fixed something is overstating the problem and overreacting.

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Voter Registration Should Be Automatic

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Hartford Courant - By Robyn Blumner - Nov. 23 (Opinion) - The problems arose because our old system of state-by-state registration rules — some of which appear designed for a mail system via pony express — is outmoded and frankly retains vestiges of our racist past. We need to follow the lead of at least 24 other countries and adopt a system of automatic and permanent voter registration.

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