So it seems that more and more interesting internet driven projects, designed to reform the US government, keep taking flight.
My man David B., fully aware of my own passion for reforming the Canadian voting system recently connected me to a great site called whytuesday.org. The simplicity of their approach is genius, asking people, elected officials, and pretty much everyone in between: Why do we (or Americans that is) vote on Tuesday?
Do you know the answer?
(clue: the reason is REALLY archaic)
(hint: the answer is here)
Why Tuesday?’s goal is bigger than changing the day of the election – but it the simple question is a great entree for getting people to think more broadly about electoral reform more broadly. Best of all they have allies on “the inside” (of Congress), one of whom is even acting as a correspondent! Very cool.
My only critique of the site is that I could not find any information supporting their claim that voter turnout would increase if elections shifted to the weekend. Maybe it’s there – but I couldn’t find it.
The other great project I’ve been following is Change Congress started by one of my heroes, Lawrence Lessig. Obviously lots going on with this project. But what really struck me as clever is how Open Congress has been telling its supporters to “tag” their donations to congressional candidates so they know they are receiving money because they took the open congress pledge.
So how do you “tag” a donation? You simply make sure that it ends in .09¢. Neat eh?
I only wish Open Congress had a list of all the candidates who’d taken the pledge (as opposed to just recent pledges).
eaves.ca 
If I can do the most pressing of a citizen responsibilities – that is, file my taxes and purchase consumer goods, online – why can I not also vote?
Even if personal computer voting isn’t viable at least we could get rid of the silly paper ballots and the disgusting waste of resources they incur.
Walk-up, swipe your ID, (don’t) smile for the camera and cast your ballot. The ballot cast and the camera shot are handled by two separate machines – so there’s no (easy) way to tie your face with your ballot, only that you’ve cast one.
We could build this to run out of ATMs – all the hardware is there.
If I can do the most pressing of a citizen responsibilities – that is, file my taxes and purchase consumer goods, online – why can I not also vote?Even if personal computer voting isn’t viable at least we could get rid of the silly paper ballots and the disgusting waste of resources they incur.Walk-up, swipe your ID, (don’t) smile for the camera and cast your ballot. The ballot cast and the camera shot are handled by two separate machines – so there’s no (easy) way to tie your face with your ballot, only that you’ve cast one.We could build this to run out of ATMs – all the hardware is there.