Voting is fundamental to our democratic system, and federal law generally requires polling places for federal elections to be accessible to older voters and voters with physical disabilities. Following reports of problems encountered in the close 2000 presidential election with respect to voter registration lists, absentee ballots, ballot counting, and antiquated voting systems, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) was enacted. Among other provisions, HAVA includes requirements for the accessibility of voting systems, effective January 1, 2006.

In the past, GAO has published several reports on issues related to voting access for older voters. Our prior work, including on-site inspections of a national sample of polling places in election year 2000, a comprehensive review of the election system in 2004, and a review of transportation issues facing seniors, has identified a number of potential barriers to voting for older Americans, as well as accommodations and progress in a number of areas. Drawing from prior work, GAO’s testimony will focus on (1) a variety of factors that affect the ability of older voters to travel to polling places, cast their votes in the voting room, or avail themselves of alternative voting provisions and (2) trends and changes regarding the accessibility of polling places and alternative voting methods.

Ensuring that older voters or other individuals with disabilities successfully cast their votes in an election requires that policymakers think broadly about access. This includes access with respect to transportation, polling places, voting equipment, and alternative voting methods. During the 2000 election, most polling places we inspected had one or more potential impediments that might prevent older voters and voters with disabilities from reaching voting rooms, although curbside voting accommodations were often made available. Additionally, our 2000 review of state provisions and practices related to accessible voting systems and accommodations in the voting room revealed that provisions to accommodate individuals with disabilities varied from state to state and may vary widely in their implementation. A 2004 GAO report also found transportation gaps in meeting the needs of seniors, which may create a barrier to voting for many elderly voters, and a lack of data on the extent of unmet needs.

Since the passage of HAVA and the subsequent 2004 election, we have identified a number of reported efforts taken to improve voting access for people with disabilities. In particular, our 2006 report on election systems shows a marked increase in state provisions addressing the accessibility of polling places, voting systems, and alternative voting methods. However, the degree of change in accessibility is difficult to determine, in part because thousands of jurisdictions have primary responsibility for managing elections and ensuring an accurate vote count, and the complexity of the election system does not ensure that these provisions and reported practices are reflective of what occurs at polling places on election day.

Understanding and addressing accessibility gaps represent enormous tasks for state and local election officials who are challenged by the multiplicity of responsibilities and requirements they must attend to within resource constraints. At the same time, as the population ages and the percentage of voters with disabilities expands, the expectation of accommodation and assistance to participate in this basic civic exercise will grow, making accessibility a key performance goal for our election community.

McCain's South Carolina Postcard

FactCheck Points Out "Sliming Obama" Emails

FactCheck.org is pursuing the two emails that are falsifying Senator Barack Obama's record:

"Dueling chain e-mails claim he's a radical Muslim or a 'racist' Christian. Both can't be right. We find both are false.

Summary

"If these two nasty e-mail messages are any indication, the 2008 presidential campaign is becoming a very dirty one.

"One claims that Obama is "certainly a racist" by virtue of belonging to Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, which it says "will accept only black parishoners" and espouses a commitment to Africa. Actually, a white theology professor says he's been "welcomed enthusiastically" at the church, as have other non-blacks.

"Another e-mail claims that Obama "is a Muslim," attended a "Wahabi" school in Indonesia, took his Senate oath on the Koran, refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and is part of an Islamic plot to take over the US. Each of these statements is false.

"These false appeals to bigotry and fear remind us of the infamous whispering campaign of eight years ago, when anonymous messages just before the South Carolina primary falsely accused Republican candidate John McCain of fathering an illegitimate child by a black woman."

Read the entire posting at FactCheck.org

Bipartisanship Forum

Norman, Oklahoma was the location of a forum featuring Senate, House, State and local leaders, many of them retired from those posts. They issued a plan laying out their recommendations for a nonpartisan approach to "address the challenges."

In order to break this partisan impasse, we urge the presidential candidates to provide:

•    clear descriptions of how they would establish a government of national unity;
•    specific strategies for reducing polarization and reaching bipartisan consensus;
•    plans to go beyond tokenism to appoint a truly bipartisan cabinet with critical posts held by the most qualified people available regardless of political affiliation; and
•    proposals for bipartisan executive and legislative policy groups in critical areas such as national security.

National elections present an opportunity for candidates and citizens to have a serious and civil discussion of the imperative issues facing our country at home and abroad. Today, we urge our fellow citizens, including the news media, to join us in asking the candidates to address these challenges.

If as a nation we begin to ask, debate, and address these and other fundamental issues, we can renew our commitment to community and empower those we elect to govern effectively.

We are convinced that if we establish a government of national unity, we can meet these challenges head on, develop a cohesive strategy prioritizing our responses and matching our goals with our capabilities. In short, we believe that if we unify, we can turn America’s peril into America’s promise and face our future with optimism.

Read the opening remarks from the Forum, A Nonpartisan Appeal to a Nation at Risk

Current Reading

2007: The Year Presidential Candidates Debated Torture

Writ, a weekly newsletter from FindLaw, a service for legal professionals writes in an article, 2007: The Year Presidential Candidates Debated Torture by Joanne Mariner:

Test your knowledge of the candidates' position on Guantanamo, torture, and habeas corpus.

1. At a Republican presidential debate in May, the moderator asked former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani if he would support the use of waterboarding (simulated drowning) and other so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" on people who were believed to have information about a future terrorist attack. Giuliani responded:

a. "As President, and as commander-in-chief of our armed forces, it would be my responsibility to respect -- and to strengthen -- international rules prohibiting the abuse of detainees. Just as I would never want Iran or North Korea or any other potential enemy to use such methods on captured American soldiers, I would not want American interrogators to use such methods against persons in their custody."

b. "As a former prosecutor, I know from experience that lawful interrogation techniques work. And torture not only degrades the government that employs it, it produces inherently unreliable information."

c. "I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of."

d. "Let's not hide behind euphemisms: as President, I'd authorize the use of torture if I thought it would help us obtain necessary information."

Read the rest of the article and test your knowledge of candidate's positions.

Slate Tracks the Candidates

Slate magazine has developed a system of tracking the major party candidates, day by day, week by week. A daily summary of candidates' activities is summarized.

What follows are the instructions for using the site:

Map the Candidates uses the candidates' public schedules to keep track of their comings and goings. A quick primer on your new election toolbox:

Do you want to know who spent the most time in Iowa or New Hampshire last month? Play with the timeline sliders above the map to customize the amount of time displayed.
Care most about who visited your home state? Then zoom in on it or type a location into the "geosearch" box below the map.
Choose which candidates you want to follow with the check boxes on to the right of the map. If you only want to see the front-runners, then uncheck all of the fringe candidates. Voilà! You're left with the cream of the crop's travels.
Follow the campaign trail virtually with MTC's news feed. Every day YouTube video and articles from local papers will give you a glimpse of what stump speeches really look and sound like. Just click the arrow next to the headline to get started.
Take a closer look at candidates by clicking on their names to the right of the map. You'll get the lowdown on their travels, media coverage, and policy positions.

Voting and Genetics

From Scientific American:

When it comes to predicting who will vote, researchers have looked at “everything but the kitchen sink,” says political scientist James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego. Theorists speculate on factors such as age, gender, race, marital status, education, income, home ownership, political knowledgeability and church attendance. But studies indicate that each one exerts only a small effect."

Fowler notes that people who vote often do so even when they know their lone ballot will not change the outcome of an election. “It’s almost like voters are programmed to keep voting, even when their common sense tells them it is probably useless,” he states. At the same time, “many people never vote, no matter what. So I started to wonder if there was something very basic at the biological level.”

Read the entire article, The Genetics of Politics, at the Scientific American site

Phineas

Phineas Finn is not the name of a new candidate in upcoming national elections but the leading character in the second of Anthony Trollope's six "Palliser" novels. Ken Emerson of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article, "What the Pols Should Read; Trollope's Phineas Finn is still a politically savvy novel" and we present a brief excerpt from a novel that can be downloaded:

How was it possible that Phineas should stand for Loughshane? From whence was the money to come for such a contest? It was a beautiful dream, a grand idea, lifting Phineas almost off the earth by its glory. When the proposition was first made to him in the smoking-room at the Reform Club by his friend Erle, he was aware that he blushed like a girl, and that he was unable at the moment to express himself plainly — so great was his astonishment and so great his gratification. But before ten minutes had passed by, while Barrington Erle was still sitting over his shoulder on the club sofa, and before the blushes had altogether vanished, he had seen the improbability of the scheme, and had explained to his friend that the thing could not be done. But to his increased astonishment, his friend made nothing of the difficulties. Loughshane, according to Barrington Erle, was so small a place, that the expense would be very little. There were altogether no more than 307 registered electors. The inhabitants were so far removed from the world, and were so ignorant of the world’s good things, that they knew nothing about bribery. The Hon. George Morris, who had sat for the last twenty years, was very unpopular. He had not been near the borough since the last election, he had hardly done more than show himself in Parliament, and had neither given a shilling in the town nor got a place under Government for a single son of Loughshane. “And he has quarrelled with his brother,” said Barrington Erle. “The devil he has! said Phineas. “I thought they always swore by each other.” “It’s at each other they swear now,” said Barrington; “George has asked the Earl for more money, and the Earl has cut up rusty”. Then the negotiator went on to explain that the expenses of the election would be defrayed out of a certain fund collected for such purposes, that Loughshane had been chosen as a cheap place, and that Phineas Finn had been chosen as a safe and promising young man. As for qualification, if any question were raised, that Loughshane had been chosen as a cheap place, and that Phineas Finn had been chosen as a safe and promising young man. As for qualification, if any question were raised, that should be made all right. An Irish candidate was wanted, and a Roman Catholic. So much the Loughshaners would require on their own account when instigated to dismiss from their service that thorough-going Protestant, the Hon. George Morris. Then “the party,” — by which Barrington Erle probably meant the great man in whose service he himself had become a politician — required that the candidate should be a safe man, one who would support “the party,” — not a cantankerous, red-hot semi-Fenian, running about to meetings at the Rotunda, and suchlike, with views of his own about tenant-right and the Irish Church. “But I have views of my own,” said Phineas, blushing again. “Of course you have, my dear boy,” said Barrington, clapping him on the back. “I shouldn’t come to you unless you had views. But your views and ours are the same, and you’re just the lad for Galway. You mightn’t have such an opening again in your life, and of course you’ll stand for Loughshane.” Then the conversation was over, the private secretary went away to arrange some other little matter of the kind, and Phineas Finn was left alone to consider the proposition that had been made to him.

To become a member of the British Parliament! In all those hot contests at the two debating clubs to which he had belonged, this had been the ambition which had moved him. For, after all, to what purpose of their own had those empty debates ever tended? He and three or four others who had called themselves Liberals had been pitted against four or five who had called themselves Conservatives, and night after night they had discussed some ponderous subject without any idea that one would ever persuade another, or that their talking would ever conduce to any action or to any result. But each of these combatants had felt — without daring to announce a hope on the subject among themselves — that the present arena was only a trial-ground for some possible greater amphitheatre, for some future debating club in which debates would lead to action, and in which eloquence would have power, even though persuasion might be out of the question.

Review

Article:

Jo Freeman, Democratic Candidates Court Progressives: Six of the declared candidates for the Democratic nomination for President came courting at the annual Take Back America Conference; each had his or her own unique appeal

Immigration Ad

FactCheck.org has issued the following analysis of an anti-Immigration Bill:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich made false claims about the Senate immigration bill in a TV ad for a conservative group. He said it "will put ... potential terrorists and gang members on a path to US citizenship,” which is contrary to the language of the legislation.

Actually, the bill grants authority to deport any alien who "at any time has participated in a criminal gang." And as for terrorists, the measure also gives the government authority to deny temporary visa status to an illegal alien if "there are reasonable grounds for regarding the alien as a danger to the security of the United States."

Gingrich further claimed that the bill "does not even allow convicted criminals to be deported," which is false. The bill provides for deportation proceedings for those convicted of "aggravated felonies," which can include violent crimes such as rape or murder or even nonviolent crimes such as fraud or theft. The bill would even allow the government to toss out an illegal alien who had been convicted of three misdemeanors, such as running a red light or disturbing the peace.

Gingrich and other opponents of the immigration legislation also describe the bill as granting "amnesty." We find that label to be misleading and a classic case of mislabeling. Several dictionaries define "amnesty" as a pardon of past offenses, or clemency. But while the legislation would allow millions of persons who are in the country illegally to remain, it does not overlook violation of US law. It would require illegal immigrants to pay a $1,000 penalty for having entered the country illegally, plus $2,000 in fees, and meet several other requirements before they could qualify for a temporary visa.

We neither oppose the legislation nor endorse it. We do advise our readers against making up their minds based on an inaccurate label.

TWO PAPERS ON PERSONAL APPEAL & POLITICS

TV Appearance and Electoral Success

"Students who saw silent videos picked the right candidate 58 percent of the time, whereas those viewers who heard full sound or muddled sound were only right 52 and 48 percent of the time, respectively, no better than the results of random guessing."

Forget the campaigns. Disregard the position papers and attack ads. One of the best ways to tell who's going to win an election is to see the candidates on TV, watching them for 10 seconds and keeping the sound off. That's how more than 260 Harvard undergraduates, watching gubernatorial candidates in 58 races, compiled a rather impressive record of forecasting elections. They picked the winner an average 58 percent of the time, according to Thin-Slice Forecasts of Gubernatorial Elections (NBER Working Paper No. 12660). The students were more accurate than any economic measure that the paper's co-authors, Daniel Benjamin and Jesse Shapiro, tested. They were far more accurate than the Harvard students who actually heard what the candidates had to say.

If this gut-level, insta-pick method seems disturbing, take heart. At least Americans aren't alone in skin-deep politics. A study of the 1996 presidential race in Romania found that people could predict the outcome of the first round of voting based merely on photographs and video clips of the candidates. A study last year of Finnish elections found that ratings of candidates' physical attractiveness predicted their success better than ratings of their competence.

Read the rest of the NBER Digest release about the study by Daniel Benjamin and Jesse Shapiro

The Looks of a Winner:
Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success

We study the role of beauty in politics. For the first time, focus is put on differences in how women and men evaluate female and male candidates and how different candidate traits relate to success in real and hypothetical elections. We have collected 16,218 assessments by 2,772 respondents of photos of 1,929 Finnish political candidates. Evaluations of beauty explain success in real elections better than evaluations of competence, intelligence, likability, or trustworthiness. The beauty premium is larger for female candidates, in contrast to findings in previous labor-market studies.

1. Introduction
It is well established that being beautiful confers many advantages on a person. Langlois et al., in a meta-analysis of 102 studies, report that the looks of people influence how they are perceived and treated by others, even by those who know them. And interestingly, attractive persons exhibit more positive behaviors and traits than unattractive persons. An emerging literature in economics demonstrates that the benefits of having good looks, as perceived by others, extend to and are substantial in the labor market. Beautiful people receive higher wages (a so-called beauty premium). According to Hamermesh and Biddle, workers of above-average beauty earn about 10 to 15 percent more than workers of below-average beauty ...

We take this line of inquiry further and ask whether there are benefits to being beautiful in the political arena as well. Is there a political “beauty premium”, such that better looking candidates have a higher chance of becoming elected to public office? In fact the advantage of beauty could, according to the logic of expressive voting, be even greater in elections: in the absence of opportunity cost people might as well vote for the most handsome or beautiful candidate.3 If so, this might be part of what some see as a tendency in elections to legislatures to put focus on candidates rather than on political platforms. We are the first to study how evaluations of male and female political candidates, in particular of their beauty, by male and female respondents differ. Our use of photos representing real political candidates allows us to outline how gender differences in evaluations are related to the electoral performance of male and female candidates.

Third Parties in American Politics: Rich History, Many Roles

Interview with Professor J. David Gillespie, now retired as Presbyterian College's vice president for academic affairs

The Republican and Democratic parties have long dominated the American political landscape. Since 1856, every president elected by US voters has belonged to one of those two parties. Almost every state's governor, members of Congress, and state legislators are also members of these two political groups. But they are not the only political parties active in the United States. There are more than 30 others, which are referred to as third parties.

J. David Gillespie, professor of political science at Presbyterian College and author of Politics at the Periphery: Third Parties in Two-Party America, notes that third parties have always been a part of America's political process and although a third-party candidate has never won the presidency, the organizations play several important roles — from educating voters on specific issues to affecting real change in government policy.

Third parties actually strengthen the government, Gillespie says, by providing a legitimate outlet for those unhappy with the status quo. They give "dissidents a chance to air their grievances within the confines of the electoral process," he explains. "And that, then, probably reduces the prospect of more violent or more aggressive kinds of approaches to political action in this country."

According to Gillespie, however, third-party candidates find the chances of actually getting elected very slim. Factors like ballot-access rules, campaign-finance laws, debate-participation policies, and media focus on the Republican and Democratic candidates all combine to keep other parties out of the White House.

In an interview with the Washington File, Gillespie talked about dualism in American politics and provided his views on the important roles of third parties.
Following is the transcript of that interview:

Interview of J. David Gillespie
Professor of Political Science
Presbyterian College, South Carolina
"Third Parties In American Politics"

QUESTION: The general perception around the world is that the US is a two party system. But, recently, I saw a website listing of 37 independent American political parties. So, clearly, third parties play a role in American politics. Could you explain a little about their role?

MR. GILLESPIE: I would say that the American two party system is probably the most stable two party system on Earth, and there are a number of reasons for that. But third parties have been around since the AntiMasonic Party [which campaigned against secretive, privileged societies] back in the 1820s at the national level, and local third parties existed even before the 1820s. They have been part and parcel of our electoral process throughout most of American history.

The roles that they play in some ways overlap with the roles of the major US parties, the Republicans and Democrats. They help to organize the electoral system by educating voters, and, thereby, organizing voter choices. They play some, usually, rather transitory or peripheral roles, in helping organize the government.

The First Republican Debate

The 10 candidates were questioned for 90 minutes May 3 at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.

Giuliani claimed that adoptions shot up 73 percent while he was mayor. In fact, the net increase over his entire tenure was 17 percent.
Brownback hyped the medical potential of stem cells taken from adults and not embryos, failing to mention their limitations.
Hunter claimed that 155,000 non-Mexicans were seized crossing illegally from Mexico last year. The actual figure is 98,153.
Romney described a Massachusetts health care plan he backed as “a fabulous program,” when in fact it has not fully taken effect and only half the low-income persons who are eligible have signed up.

New York Adoptions

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani overstated a rise in adoptions during his term as mayor.

Giuliani: When I was mayor of New York City, I encouraged adoptions. Adoptions went up 65 to 70 percent; abortions went down 16 percent.

Actually, adoptions rose only 17 percent during Giuliani’s tenure as mayor, according to the New York City Administration for Children's Services. It’s true adoptions went up by 73 percent between 1994 and 1997 — the first three years he was in office. But from that peak they slid back by 32 percent before he left office, erasing most of the initial gain.

Read the rest of the analysis at FactCheck.org

Rudy Giuliani's campaign disputed this anaylsis and FactCheck continued to pursue the contention:

In an earlier article we criticized Rudy Giuliani for saying adoptions went up 65 to 70 percent when he was mayor, when in fact adoptions at the end of his tenure were only 17 percent higher than at the start, and falling. His campaign still insists his claim is justified and offers its own interpretation of the statistical record.
In this article we offer the former mayor's rationale, along with why we believe it is a classic case of how candidates and public officials sometimes use data selectively to create a false impression.

The First Democratic Debate

Democratic Candidates Debate; We find some spinning but no whoppers at the first candidate debate of 2008

Summary

Pew Survey

In addition to partisanship, other demographic differences emerged over what Americans see as positives and negatives when sizing up presidential candidates. Among the more noteworthy:

Older women are the most likely to say they would be less likely to vote for a female candidate. About one-in-five (21%) women ages 65 and older express reservations about voting for a woman for president, compared with just 8% of younger women, and 11% of men.

About twice as many African Americans as whites say they would be more likely to vote for a woman for president (24% vs. 11%).

People in the South and those with less education are more likely than others to have concerns about a female candidate.

As far as a candidate's race is concerned, far more African Americans than whites say they would be more likely to vote for a black candidate (30% vs. 4%). But most African Americans and whites say this would not matter to them (69% and 90%, respectively).

Concern about a voting for a Hispanic candidate is highest among white evangelical Protestants and people in the South. There are no significant differences across party lines.

Concern about a presidential candidate in his or her 70s is widespread regardless of the age of the respondent. Roughly half of those in all age groups – including those 65 and older – say they would be less likely to support such a candidate.

Most people say it would not matter if a candidate is in their 40s, though it is more of an issue (both positive and negative) for voters who themselves are age 65 or older.

Four-in-ten white evangelical Protestants say they would less likely to vote for a candidate who is a Mormon, the highest percentage in any religious group. Just 28% of white mainline Protestants, and 22% of all Catholics, say they would be less inclined to vote for a Mormon.

Doubts about a Muslim candidate increase dramatically with age. Nearly six-in-ten Americans (58%) ages 65 and older say they would be less likely to support a candidate who is Muslim, compared with 32% of 18-29-year olds.

The GAO Examines Voting for the Elderly and Disabled

Some Improvements in Voting Accessibility from 2000 to 2004 Elections, but Gaps in Policy and Implementation Remain

McCain's South Carolina Postcard

FactCheck Points Out "Sliming Obama" Emails

Bipartisanship Forum

Current Reading

2007: The Year Presidential Candidates Debated Torture

Slate Tracks the Candidates

Voting and Genetics

Phineas

Review

Article:

Immigration Ad

TWO PAPERS ON PERSONAL APPEAL & POLITICS

TV Appearance and Electoral Success

The Looks of a Winner:
Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success

Third Parties in American Politics: Rich History, Many Roles

The First Republican Debate

Analysis

The First Democratic Debate

Democratic Candidates Debate; We find some spinning but no whoppers at the first candidate debate of 2008

Pew Survey

New Link

Links

The GAO Examines Voting for the Elderly and Disabled Some Improvements in Voting Accessibility from 2000 to 2004 Elections, but Gaps in Policy and Implementation Remain

McCain's South Carolina Postcard

FactCheck Points Out "Sliming Obama" Emails

Bipartisanship Forum

Current Reading

2007: The Year Presidential Candidates Debated Torture

Slate Tracks the Candidates

Voting and Genetics

Phineas

Review

Article:

Immigration Ad

TWO PAPERS ON PERSONAL APPEAL & POLITICS

TV Appearance and Electoral Success

The Looks of a Winner: Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success

Third Parties in American Politics: Rich History, Many Roles

The First Republican Debate

Analysis

The First Democratic Debate

Democratic Candidates Debate; We find some spinning but no whoppers at the first candidate debate of 2008

Pew Survey

New Link

Links

The GAO Examines Voting for the Elderly and Disabled

Some Improvements in Voting Accessibility from 2000 to 2004 Elections, but Gaps in Policy and Implementation Remain

The Looks of a Winner:
Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success