Speak out. Raise awareness about what’s at stake. Call on our political parties to resist the temptation to suppress certain votes in the hope of attaining electoral success and, instead, encourage and work with the parties to achieve this success by appealing to more voters. And urge policymakers at every level to reevaluate our election systems – and to reform them in ways that encourage, not limit, participation.
Today, we cannot – and must not – take the right to vote for granted.
--Attorney General Eric Holder
Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn. My God do you learn.
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- C.S. Lewis
It confuses me when I see posts from young progressives about refusing to vote in 2012. Less than a year ago almost 80% of young people didn’t vote in the midterm elections. This is what happened. And this. And this. And this. Just look at what we have to show for that strategy.
This year there’s been a significant wave of new laws in states across the country that have the effect of cracking down on voting rights. It is the most significant rollback in voting rights in decades.
--Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice. After analyzing 19 laws that were passed and 2 executive orders that were issued in 14 states this year, the Brennan Center just released its outstanding study on these new voting restrictions.
FDR Went to Wisconsin To Battle ‘Economic Royalists’ But Obama Avoids Both The State and the Fight.
The last pair of recall elections will be held today and two Democratic State Senators are fighting to keep their seats. Obama will be within 20 miles of Wisconsin, but he refuses to cross the state line. The Nation has a great piece comparing Obama’s approach to that of another great Democratic leader, FDR. Like Obama, FDR had been elected on a promise of “hope” and “change.” Like Obama, FDR had tried with mixed success to deliver on that promise. The thirty-second president went to Green Bay to explain to a crowd of sympathetic but worried Wisconsinites that the economic battles of the moment needed to be seen in the perspective of the great American contest between a privileged few that engaged in the “private means of exploitation” and the great many that had “waged a long and bitter fight for [their] rights.” Read the complete article here.
Five months after Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin pushed through a law stripping public unions of their bargaining rights, the Republican Party has paid a price. Two of the state senators who backed the law were thrown out of office by voters on Tuesday and replaced with Democrats. Mr. Walker’s opponents did not succeed in turning over the Senate, but it was still an impressive response to the governor’s arrogant overreach.
--The New York Times, Wisconsin’s Warning to Union Busters
Get Out The Vote, Wisconsin!
Need to register? You can still register on election day! Here’s info on how to do so. Also, check out this great 1-page info sheet with all sorts of info.
Not sure where to go? Find your polling place here. Polls are open from 7am -8pm.
Questions? Problems? Need to file a complaint? You can call the ACLU’s Election Protection hotline: 866-687-8683.
On, Wisconsin!
