Voter Turnout: Lowest In 72 Years

From the New York Times:

The abysmally low turnout in last week’s midterm elections — the lowest in more than seven decades — was bad for Democrats, but it was even worse for democracy. In 43 states, less than half the eligible population bothered to vote, and no state broke 60 percent. In the three largest states — California, Texas and New York — less than a third of the eligible population voted. New York’s turnout was a shameful 28.8 percent, the fourth-lowest in the country, despite three statewide races (including the governor) and 27 House races.

Over all, the national turnout was 36.3 percent; only the 1942 federal election had a lower participation rate at 33.9 percent. The reasons are apathy, anger and frustration at the relentlessly negative tone of the campaigns. Republicans ran a single-theme campaign of pure opposition to President Obama, and Democrats were too afraid of the backlash to put forward plans to revive the economy or to point out significant achievements of the last six years. Neither party gave voters an affirmative reason to show up at the polls.

Colorado and Oregon, two states with voting by mail, had double the voter turnout of New York, which has no early voting. Maine, which allows early voting, had the highest turnout in the nation at 59.3%.

Tweet Of The Day: NARAL North Carolina

This is really happening.

Phyllis Schlafly: Early Voting Must Be Stopped Because It Helps Democrats

"Democrats promote early voting for the same reason they oppose voter ID: because they view early voting as helping their side. In the absurdly long 35-day period of early voting in Ohio in 2012, Democrats racked up perhaps a million-vote advantage over Republicans before Election Day was ever reached. Republicans have been slow to realize how early voting helps the Democrats. Most top Republican political operatives firmly believed, right up to the morning of the 2012 election, that Mitt Romney was going to win. Romney lacked a message, too, but he was mainly defeated by the Democrats’ superb ground game, which exploited early voting in key states such as Florida and Ohio. By continuously updating their computer-based information about who had not yet voted, Democrats could harass and nag low-information voters until they turned in their ballots." - Phyllis Schlafly, admitting in World Net Daily what the GOP always officially denies.

Today's GOP Winning Message

Lewis Black On GOP Voter Suppression

Fantastic.

OHIO: GOP Wins Early Voting Battle

Acting on a 5-4 vote, SCOTUS issued an order allowing Ohio officials to cut early voting in the state by a week. http://t.co/2iYUbXLNWS
— POLITICO (@politico) September 30, 2014

Rush says 'Left loves early voting; lets them know; how many votes they need to find' #SCOTUS #TCOT— Rufus Putnum (@RufusPutnum) September 30, 2014

Phyllis Schlafly: Stop Early Voting

"Contrary to liberal propaganda, early voting decreases overall voter turnout. Early voting harms third party candidates who lack a political organization to get out early voters. Early voting is a misnomer. More accurate names would be premature voting, uninformed voting, or political machine voting. Early voting even violates federal law, which for more than a century has required national elections to occur on the same day. Early voting disenfranchises Election Day voters by determining the outcome before Election Day. What if jurors were allowed to decide they are tired of a lengthy trial and want to convict a defendant mid-way through the trial and go home? Isn't it just as important for voters to hear all the facts about candidates before voting?" - Phyllis Schlafly, writing for the Eagle Forum.

Phyllis Schlafly: End Early Voting

"When President Obama cast his ballot more than a week before Election Day, he did something no other President had ever done: he voted early. He did it to encourage many of his supporters to vote early also, which they did. Nearly half of Americans voted before Election Day this year. That was a record. This changed the way presidential campaigns are conducted and had a big influence on the final outcome. By the time Election Day arrived, many Americans felt that their vote no longer counted as much on Election Day as it once did. [snip] A Generation ago, Election Day was respected by Americans almost as much as the 4th of July, and this tradition caused high voter turnout by our citizens. But early voting has denigrated this tradition in many states, to the harm of our political system. One important lesson we can learn from the recent election is that States with early voting should repeal it so that the tradition of the importance of Election Day may be restored." - Phyllis Schlafly, who claims that President Obama won because of early voting.

Maya Angelou: Don't Give Up Your Vote

"We are here in direct relation to the heroes and she-roes who paid with their lives for this right. Many of us are old enough to remember what it felt like to be told we could not register to vote without taking a test or paying a poll tax. Some were asked how many angels danced on a head of a pin, how many bubbles were in a bar of soap. We are here because four courageous college freshmen sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960, four years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, to make a stand for equality. It’s a terrible thing to obstruct access to the ballot. But we follow all those who had the courage to dare to live so we can dare to live.

"Because of them, we are here. So vote to keep moving us forward. And carry with you your friends, family and neighbors. Carry them from your congregations, your beauty salons and barbershops, your sororities and fraternities. Carry with you those five people whose vote could make the difference. You may be pretty or plain, heavy or thin, gay or straight, poor or rich. But nobody has more votes than you. All human beings are more equal to each other than they are unequal. And voting is the great equalizer. It is important. It is imperative. There is no time for complacency." - Maya Angelou, writing for the Winston-Salem Journal.

The Obamas Want You To Vote Early

Voted Naked, Illinois

(Via - Dan Savage)

Early Birds For Obama

From the Washington Post:

More than twelve million voters have already cast ballots in the presidential contest, according to one estimate, and new data from the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll shows these voters breaking Democratic by a wide margin. Among those who said they have already voted at an early voting location or sent in an absentee ballot, Barack Obama picked up 60 percent of the vote in the new poll to John McCain's 39 percent. These voters make up 9 percent of "likely" voters in the track.

The senator from Illinois has a similar lead, 58 to 39 percent, among those who plan to vote early but have not yet. (Those who plan to vote on Election Day also go for Obama, but by a narrower, 51 to 45 percent.) These early voting numbers are a near mirror-image of those from the last two elections: A paper using the National Annenberg Election Study reports that George W. Bush scored 62 percent of early voters in 2000 and 60 percent of them in 2004.

Have you voted already? I'm all for early voting, but I really enjoy the thrill of election day - the lines, the chatter, the sense of optimism. My polling place is less than a hundred feet from my front door, so I'm might just sit on my stoop and enjoy the atmosphere for a while.