As for people having trouble voting on Tuesday that what’s they have absentee voting for. Increasing voter turnout amongst those that are uninformed or apathetic is not really a noble goal.

To decrease the strain on election workers, how about hiring people who are competent to work the polls instead of the hacks they do and opening a few more polling stations?

These new professionals in software, the media, consulting, and mid-management have now declared themselves to be Democrats. After seeing Clinton and Bush back to back, they have switched their votes as part of a rejection of the religious right, the war in Iraq, and laissez-faire economics.

The history of revolution usually parallels the history of rising, not falling incomes, and the middle class revolutions of 1848 brought many countries the democratic system in the first place. In the Obama revolution, the upper-classing of America took a front seat – the central question is whether they will remain there.”

Mark J. Penn served as chief adviser to President Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential election and to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her Senate and presidential races. He is the author of “Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind

this is a huge change in those who now do not consider
themselves republicans

If they really wanted to increase turnout they would do what Jiminy suggested and thats put it n the weekend for Sat/Sun or even better make it a national holiday on a Tues or Wed and close lots of businesses to give people nothing to do but vote. Also putting it in the middle of the week is the best move because it prevents people from using the holiday as a “long weekend” etc…

Early voting is a bonus for most states and voters but I am not thoroughly behind 1 to 2 week early voting. Thats seems a bit much.

Also I am tired of hearing all the whining from those who couldn’t be bothered to register then tried to vote. If you can’t take the 2 minutes it takes to go to the post office and fill out a card then odds are you don’t care about voting all that much.

The above sentence should read: “Voting during the work day/week is hard for some”

Echoing Jiminy, I don’t think we should have early voting-something may come up about a candidate that might change your mind.

And, after hearing about ACORN registrating voters more than once, I would like us to do what they did in Afghanistan and have the voters’ thumbs dipped in purple ink-although I would make certain you couldn’t get it off for two days-just to make certain that it is one person, one vote.

And yes, something can happen the last week or two to change minds. For example, let’s say Iran attacked Israel ten days ago. Do you think Obama would have won?

The only possible way the last week of a twenty-one week campaign is going to have an effect is if there is a debate in the last week…like the Reagan campaign years ago. However, as we now know, McCain’s senior adviser Steve Schmidt and other advisors contemplated telling McCain BEFORE the last debate that the campaign was effectively over, but decided not to. That was about three weeks before the election date.

Please read my last post for further explanation

I do understand but disagree with your contempt for people that don’t make the polls on election day. Remember that on average only fifty to at most sixty percent (depending on how you calculate it) percent of eligible voters make it to the polls for presidential elections. That does not include this year of course, which I believe was in the low sixty percentile. Imagine if early voting was not available during earlier presidential elections, then the fifty to sixty percent would be even lower.

There are all sorts of reason that people cannot make it to the polls on a certain day. How about every person in the country that went to an emergency room on election day at three a.m. and was then admitted in the hospital.

How about the person that planned to go after work, but the job had an emergency that demanded your attention. I could go on and on about life situations and yes some people will never vote and that’s on them. The fact of the matter is that we should make it as easy as possible to vote and we are currently in the prehistoric ages in New York.

I’m for making presidential elections a full weekend, but dead set against “early voting.” SmartPorpoise summed up that one quite well.

But I also believe voting in presidential election years should be changed to one entire weekend—and not remain as a single Tuesday.