Grants to increase voter engagement and information

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is a non-profit organization which since 1950 has provided over $1.3 billion in grants to promote quality journalism, community development, innovation in media, and education.

The foundation may be best known for its support of StoryCorps and public media in general.

This month as part of the Knight News Challenge the foundation has announced that it is awarding $3.2 million to groups whose efforts boost voter engagement and provide reliable news and information to voters about candidates and issues. Twelve grants of $35,000 each are going to “prototype” projects in earlier stages of development. The remaining $2.78 million will be distributed to ten groups whose projects are in a more advanced stage of development.

The projects of those ten groups are summarized in this video.

Additional details about the ten projects:

2016 Political Ad Tracker
The California Civic Data Coalition
Campaign Hound
Inside the 990 Treasure Trove
Civic Engagement Toolkit for Local Election Officials
Informed Voting From Start to Finish
Revive My Vote
Sharp Insight
The Next Generation Beyond Exit Polls
Vote-by-Smartphone

The Women Who Ran (for Office)

The Women’s Suffrage movement in the United States fought for the legal right of women to vote. Like the abolitionist’s fight to end slavery and the temperance movement’s fight against alcohol consumption, the Women’s Suffrage movement was a decades long fight.

Beginning in latter half of the 19th century, women won the right to vote first in various states and localities, sometimes on on certain issues like school board membership. Women only won the vote nationally when the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 20, 1920.

One fascinating way to look at this era is through the women who ran for political office. The “Her Hat Was In the Ring” web site and database are part of an ongoing project collecting information concerning women who campaigned for elected public office before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in August of 1920.

You can explore the database by Name, State, Office, or Political Party.

What is a Lame Duck session of Congress?

A lame-duck session of Congress in the United States occurs whenever one Congress meets in an even numbered year after its successor is elected, but before the successor’s term has begun.

The term “lame duck”, on its own, can also be used to describe an individual politician who has lost a bid for re-election or is not running for re-election.  It is also often used to describe a second term US president because he cannot run for a third term. In these three situations the exact date the individual is leaving office is known.

Origins of the Phrase

The phrase lame duck was coined in the eighteenth century at the London Stock Exchange, to refer to a stockbroker who defaulted on his debts. Horace Walpole, in a 1761 letter to Sir Horace Mann, made the first known mention of the term in writing when he asked: “Do you know what a Bull and a Bear and Lame Duck are?”

The expression migrated to its current politic use in the nineteenth century. The first American use of it appeared in the Congressional Globe (the official record of the US Congress at the time) on January 14, 1863: “In no event . . . could [the Court of Claims] be justly obnoxious to the charge of being a receptacle of ‘lame ducks’ or broken down politicians.”

Lame Duck Sessions in the US Congress

This March 5, 1915 cartoon by Clifford K. Berryman depicts defeated Democrats heading to the White House hoping to secure political appointments.

Before 1933, when the 20th Amendment changed the dates of the congressional term, the last regular session of Congress was always a lame duck session. The Twentieth Amendment moved the beginning and ending of the terms members of Congress from March 4 to January 3.

Under the 20th Amendment lame duck sessions can still occur, but only as a result of specific actions undertaken either by the existing Congress or the President. Some of the actions are very rare some have never been used at all.

Explain the increasing importance of the Hispanic vote in the United States (short essay)

This short essay is worth your time. ABBEYLW points out the seismic demographic shifts going on in the United States right now. Hispanics, as the single largest growing ethnic minority in our nation are key to the short term success of both of our main political parties.

However, and this is critical, Hispanic Americans come from very diverse places in Central and South America and both parties take great risks when they assume that this minority will vote as a single bloc over time. Differences in religious dedication, economic success, and education levels will all serve as factors that will eventually fracture this group in the same way Americans of European descent have self-sorted themselves over time.

The Historian's Apprentice

The USA is made up of various immigrant groups with different cultural identities and traditions. It has assimilated new immigrants, from the first WASP settlers, through waves of European immigration, and more recently to immigrants from Asia and Latin America. The most significant minority racial groups in the American electorate are African-Americans and Hispanics.

Hispanics are a growing group. According to the 2000 census, they formed 12% of the population, but because they are a young group and a significant proportion is not yet of voting age, their full political importance is yet to show. As Hispanics become a larger cohort within the voting age population in future decades, they will become an increasingly important racial group for the two parties to attract.

Most Hispanics are Spanish speaking and over 70% are Roman Catholic, which has led to some vote switching from the Democrats to the Republicans over issues such…

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Voter Apathy in 1919 Massachusetts

Almost a century ago voter apathy was already a big concern.  This postcard was distributed by the Coolidge/Cox campaign in Massachusetts in 1919 .

Coolidge-Cox Postcard, ca. 1919 (Click to see larger version)

To put the issue in a modern context, there were two ballot questions in Massachusetts in 1919 and the November 4, 1919 results showed that 70% of the eligible voters cast a vote on those.

Today, a 70% turn out of registered voters on election day would be considered a noteworthy event.  In this year’s 2014 midterm election, only 48.89% of Massachusetts voters came out to the polls.