Tag: civic participation
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Straight Party Tickets
The only argument that I can imagine in favor of the straight party option on a ballot is that someone might accidentally vote for the wrong candidate when they mean to vote for candidates from a single party. This is where technology can help us. Since we have already moved to touch-screen voting machines we…
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Join the Game
When we recognize that most “news” is really entertainment it’s easy to see that politics is really a sport. John Florez is absolutely right in saying It’s time we all join the game and back some rookies. Assuming that more people actually join the game sometime before election day John suggests: Maybe this time voters…
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Thwarted
I had planned on participating in last night’s caucus meetings, but life intervened and I was not able to. That being said, I am still interested to learn what happened in those caucus meetings for my precinct (Lehi-08). I would love to know the outcome of the Republican and Democratic caucuses, especially the Democratic caucus…
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Open Congress
It becomes more and more clear each day how powerful the internet can be as a tool to improve our political process by enabling citizens to be informed. A great example of that is OpenCongress.org. The purpose of the site is to provide information on bills and members of congress. It only took me about…
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Important Changes
In a meeting with LaVarr Webb this morning two topics really stuck with me that seem to illustrate the most important political problems that we face as a nation. The particular issues we talked about were at the level of our state government, but both issues apply equally well to our federal government and often…
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Requirements for Voting
After I wrote about the value of caucuses I found an interesting opinion on lowering the voting age. We should hasten the enfranchisement of this generation, born between 1980 and 1995, by lowering the voting age to 16. . . 16-year-olds who want to start voting should be able to obtain an “early voting permit”…
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Thoughts On Caucuses
The following snippet from a comment this morning (thanks Scott) really got me thinking. {Republican} Caucuses are the domain of grass roots Republicans. They are dominated by politically informed people that consider themselves conservatives. Primaries are far more open. One of the things that I have long thought would improve our country was if people…
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Polls Are Open
If you are registered and you haven’t yet – do. If you have already – encourage others to vote as well.
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Bloggers – Turn Out Utah
Earlier today, before significant numbers of ballots had been counted, the news coming out of New Hampshire was that turnout was way up and some precincts were requesting more ballots. In response to that, JM Bell and Misty Fowler each suggested that we’d love to have that problem in Utah. The more I think about…
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Wrinkles In Iowa
I have read two stories now from the New York Times about questionable practices in the Iowa Caucuses. One on Iowa’s Student Vote and another on the reporting of the Democratic Caucus results. In regard to the student vote I was disappointed to learn that: . . . political operatives often try to suppress the…