Election Night 2012: Obama wins, MN amendments fail, legislature goes DFL, Nolan beats Cravaack, Bachmann hanging on

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The morning after: Obama has four more years, but he’ll still be contending with a Republican House of Representatives. Governor Mark Dayton, however, faces the remainder of his term with a DFL House and Senate — a complete turnaround. Minnesotans rejected both the Marriage Amendment and the Voter ID Amendment by convincing margins. Except for Rick Nolan’s defeat of Chip Cravaack in the Eighth Congressional District, incumbents held their places, though Michele Bachmann’s narrow win in the Sixth may mean a recount there. What do you think about the election results? Share your responses in a quick video here. It’s easy! Continue Reading

Vote! And don’t let dirty tricks scare you away from the polls

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Voter intimidation is the name of the game for True the Vote and other election vigilantes, according to an October report in The Atlantic. In Houston in 2010, they turned out in force.Among other things, poll observers were accused of hovering over voters, blocking lines of people who were trying to cast ballots, and, in the words of Assistant County Attorney Terry O’Rourke, “getting into election workers’ faces.”Then there are the ominous “Voter Fraud is a felony” ads placed on billboards in poor neighborhoods in Wisconsin, and taken down by Clear Channel because they were a violation of its policy against anonymous funding of political ads. I just spotted that ad on a bus stop in Minneapolis today, so they’re still running in low-income neighborhoods here.Another Atlantic article, published November 1, cites more anti-voting organizing efforts:There were the fake letters on official-looking letterhead in Florida notifying people they’d have to prove their citizenship to vote.There were mailers in Ohio and Arizona listing the wrong election date. There were robocalls telling Virginians they could vote by phone for convenience. In Pennsylvania, despite the voter ID law being blocked in court, the state kept putting up posters and sending mailers telling people they would be “required to show photo ID on Election Day.” Continue Reading

Extra! Extra! Clark Kent quits the Daily Planet

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In this week’s Marvel Comics Superman edition, Clark Kent quit the Daily Planet. Superman writer Scott Lobdell told USA Today: “Rather than Clark be this clownish suit that Superman puts on, we’re going to really see Clark come into his own in the next few years as far as being a guy who takes to the Internet and to the airwaves and starts speaking an unvarnished truth.”I’m a little worried about the competition, but, hey — there’s room on the internet for everybody.And OUR Daily Planet has been online from the beginning. One difference: we have citizen journalists, not Supermen and women. We still share Clark’s passion for journalism (and maybe for truth, justice and the American way):”The truth is that somewhere along the way, the business of news became the news. Growing up in Smallville, I believed that journalism was an ideal, as worthy and important as being a cop, a fireman — a teacher or a doctor. Continue Reading

Minnesota community organizations start health research projects, with help from University of Minnesota

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Representatives from 11 community groups started work on their community-based health research projects in a meeting room at the University of Minnesota October 25. “Instead of research done to communities,” said Andrea Leinberger-Jabari, of the Community-engaged Research Programs at the University of Minnesota, “it’s research done with communities.”

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Lies, damn lies and Voter ID

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Among all the wild-eyed charges thrown about by Voter ID proponents, one stood out last week. That was the charge made by Ramsey County Commissioner candidate Sue Jeffers in a KFAI interview (about the 13-minute mark.)”Out of Mark Ritchie’s own deputy commissioner’s mouth, I heard him say in 2008, there were 25,000 more ballots than registered voters. 25,000 more ballots than registered voters. How does that happen? In 2010, Mark Ritchie said there were more. Continue Reading

Believe it or not: U.S. education system is working

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“Faith in the public schools has been steadily eroding since 1973. But are things really this dismal?” The answer, according to an article in the October 10 Education Week, is a resounding NO. Despite constant criticism and flagging public confidence, schools and students are steadily improving — and the number cited by MetaMetrics, an education research firm, back up their positive conclusion. Continue Reading

Convicted of a crime? Maybe you CAN vote

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After all the hand-wringing about illegal voting, turns out that many people who have been convicted of crimes in Minnesota are still eligible to vote. That’s one of several interesting bits of information coming out of Minneapolis city council member Elizabeth Glidden’s early morning meeting September 28 on challenges facing individuals with a criminal record, and efforts to create fair hiring opportunities for those who have already served their time (more on that after the jump.) Continue Reading