This is a disgrace. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and VoteVets.org have discovered that the VA is instructing its staff to avoid diagnosing soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD:
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Both CREW and VoteVets have issued spot-on statements on the matter:
In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in the Indiana Photo-ID case (as well as the recent Women's Voices, Women Vote ruckus), Senators Feingold and Klobuchar are proposing nation-wide election day registration for federal elections.
From the AP:
WASHINGTON -- Minnesota and Wisconsin lawmakers are seeking legislation that would require states to let people register to vote on the same day that a federal election is held.
Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, along with Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, plan to introduce the bill on Thursday. The lawmakers, all Democrats, say that same-day registration will encourage more people to vote.
The legislation comes three days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can require voters to produce photo identification. Civil rights groups worry that such voter ID laws will deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Proponents say voter ID laws are needed to prevent fraud.There's one other constituency I would add to those listed by Feingold and Klobuchar: young voters. Young people arguably face some of the highest barriers to participation of any demographic. We move a lot (invalidating our registrations), we are inexperienced with the process, local municipalities discourage student voting, and now thanks to the Supreme Court, young voters in Indiana face a number of new bureaucratic hoops through which they must jump before casting their first ballot. Even worse, campaigns rarely target us, further decreasing chances that we will be registered and informed about upcoming elections (Obama is definitely the exception here). Given all that, it's no wonder voter turnout rates are lower among young people and higher among seniors who rarely move, are highly targeted, and have decades of experience with the process.
Over the course of the last week, I've picked through the polling results from the recent Harvard Institute of Politics Survey of over 2,000 young voters. I've talked about Obama's lead among young voters, and McCain's deficit among the same, and about how young people are engaged at a much higher level this year than in previous years. Now I want to take a look at young voter's policy concerns.
There tend to be a few bits of conventional wisdom when it comes to young voters and policy issues. The first is that the only thing young people care about is the draft, or as Ralph Nader recently (and inaccurately) stated, the only thing that will increase youth engagement is the threat of a draft. The second is that young people are consumed by humanitarian issues like the genocide in Darfur. There are grains of truth in both statements - in 2004 there was a lot of messaging done by Rock the Vote and other groups around the draft that did in fact help spur youth turnout, and young people are disproportionately active around the issue of genocide. As with most pieces of conventional wisdom, though, these do not convey the whole truth.
The results of the Harvard IOP Survey reveal that the concerns of young voters have shifted radically since the fall of 2007. Six months ago, Iraq was the #1 issue for 37% of young Americans. Today, that number has shrunk to 20%. In March 2007, the economy was the top concern of just 5% of young people. Today it ranks as the greatest concern of 30% of young voters. The war was a motivator for youth action in 2004, but in 2008, it seems that the tanking economy will drive young people to the ballot box.
