Turnout Got Low, Low, Low, Low

I'm just catching up on some light reading and I came across and an article from Yahoo news that does a really good job of outlining just how miserable turnout was in the 2014 elections.

Voter turnout in last week's midterm elections was terrible. How terrible? Just 36.3 percent of eligible voters cast votes — the worst turnout in 72 years, the New York Times reports. Only the 1942 election (33.9 percent) had a lower rate of voter turnout.

Here's a quick breakdown, based on preliminary estimates of voting data from the United States Elections Project:

• Less than half of the eligible voters in 43 states cast votes.

• The seven that saw more than half: Maine, Wisconsin, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota and Iowa.

• No state cracked 60 percent.

• Maine, at 59.3 percent, had the highest voter turnout percentage-wise in the country.

• Indiana, at 28 percent, had the lowest.

• In California, Texas and New York — the three largest states in terms of population — less than a third of eligible voters voted.

• New York, at 28.8 percent, had the fourth lowest turnout rate in the country.

I don't have anything particularly insightful to add, but I wanted to share it with you all and also keep it here archived so that we have easy access to these statistics later. We have to do better.

Today In Voter Suppression: Voter ID Debate Still Goin' Strong

When I presented my Op-Ed on Section 5 to my Policy Writing class one of my classmates responded, "I kind of thought all of this was resolved when Obama won re-election." Lest I catch any of you making similarly ill-informed statements, here are just a few of the things going on with Voter ID laws across our great country:

Virginia: Senate Bill 719 and House Bill 1337, which passed the Senate and House of Delegates on largely party line votes, will severely restrict the number of acceptable forms of voter identification. The laws will take effect in 2014.

Maine: An independent panel formed by a Republican official and charged with examining Maine's electoral system has concluded that the state should not a implement voter ID system. "The issue of voter ID became a hot topic in Maine in November, when outgoing Republican Party Chair Charlie Webster claimed that part of the reason Republicans lost their races was because black voters cast ballots in rural Maine towns...Webster later apologized."

Indiana: Under proposed House Bill 1311, students who pay out-of-state tuition would not be able to vote in Indiana.

Missouri: "The Missouri House is set to again consider legislation that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls...The state Supreme Court struck down a 2006 photo ID law before it went into effect, and the GOP-controlled Legislature's efforts to push through a similar requirement in 2011 fizzled with a gubernatorial veto and a court challenge. Lawmakers also proposed, but failed to pass, a photo ID bill last year. This session, Republicans have returned to Jefferson City with veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate and are pushing the effort again."

New Hampshire: A bill to repeal the new voter photo identification law drew support Tuesday at a public hearing. Lawmakers last year approved a photo ID bill just months before the primary election that required voters to show a variety of photo IDs in order to vote in last November’s election. However, beginning in September, the list of acceptable photo IDs narrows to state or federally issued IDs.