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While the entire military voting system is broken, there are some states whose military absentee voting records are particularly shocking, and it seems that the Department of Defense and state voting officials are simply passing the buck -- pointing the finger at each other as the problem. In the end, it adds up to the disenfranchisement of military voters. According to a report from the Military Voter Protection Project (MVPP), the picture during the 2012 election was not pretty, and unless s

As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?  - William M. “Boss” Tweed, c. 1871 History shows that for as long as the right to vote has existed, that right has been threatened. Thomas Nast’s caricature portraying “Boss” Tweed leaning against a pedestal on which stands “the Ballot” symbolizes a dark time in late nineteenth century America, where the “playing field” of politics was leveraged by party bosses and machine politics at the expense of the voters. Tammany Hall-era p

UPDATE: Representative Mike McIntyre (D-NC 7) announced his retirement today, January 8. Consequently, the district will most likely be won by the GOP. It should be noted that, assuming the GOP win the 7th district, the North Carolina delegation to the House of Representatives will consist of ten Republicans and three Democrats. North Carolina’s seventh congressional district is considered one of the most competitive districts in the United States, but that wasn’t always the case. Congressman

In today's congressional atmosphere, suggesting ten costly programs that could be reasonably cut from the budget is analogous to placing warring siblings in a room with one toy and expecting them to cooperate.However,  . Obvious areas such as the morbidly obese defense budget and the contentious NSA surveillance programs are not listed here as the siblings just aren't ready for such a task, but here are ten things both sides could reasonably find common ground on: $77.5 billion - Mine Royaltie

Could the Republican Party be spent as a national electoral force? It will be if it doesn’t learn from its mistakes and return to a more central position in American life which includes talking to independent voters, according to seasoned election strategist Ford O’Connell’s new book, Hail Mary: The 10-Step Playbook for Republican Recovery. O’Connell doesn’t pull any punches in his analyses, which suggests that the GOP will have no chance of taking the White House in the foreseeable future if i

With Congress still unable to pass a budget deal and the debt ceiling deadline getting closer and closer, the congressional approval rating has dropped to 11 percent. As a result, commentators have already begun speculating how these dismal numbers might affect the 2014 midterm elections. Many believe it is too soon to tell, but overwhelmingly, the polarization and gerrymandering of these districts have reduced the competitiveness of congressional races to a new low. In many ways, this increas

As week 2 of the first government shutdown in over a decade commences, most political watchers have started asking the question, "How did we get here?" Some, like Independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have been quick to blame gerrymandering for the government shutdown that's plaguing Washington. Though 'safe districts' can breed ideological extremism, the popular narrative that gerrymandering is the sole culprit for a dysfunctional government misses a larger underlying factor: the parti

Image Credit: Joy Brown / Shutterstock.com Poll results examining political tendencies among college students were released on August 23 by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The team conducted face-to-face polling of 1,246 students at 16 university campuses across North Carolina. Approximately three-quarters of the students who stopped and talked to these researchers self-identified as politically independent from the Republican or Democratic party, suggesting yo

A quick glimpse through the Drudge Report the other night brought up quite a few articles focused on racial issues. While I know that Matt Drudge lives for controversy, I still had to wonder whether this was indicative of our nation as a whole. I am always hesitant to write about racial incidents given my background (white, middle-income, small town/suburban). What in the world do I know about it? I grew up in a relatively homogeneous community, and I live in one today. Still, I am concerned.Dru

I read an article in the NY Times last week that surprised me.  It started out as a scathing, if somewhat predictable, exposé of the consequences of unfettered Republican rule in North Carolina and efforts by the GOP to solidify their agenda by employing voter suppression and gerrymandering tactics.  What surprised me was that the Times, normally so quick to use stories of Republican malfeasance to project the Democrats as the “good guys,” concluded the article with the following: "But voters n