The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act ensures that American women and men in uniform receive ballots a minimum of 45 days before an election in order to ensure there’s enough time to complete and return them.
The bill, which takes effect before the 2010 national elections, was approved on a 68-29 vote.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell has written an interesting and provocative piece on marriage at The Nation.
She writes: “We must do more than simply integrate new groups into an old system. Let’s use this moment to re-imagine marriage and marriage-free options for building families, rearing children, crafting communities, and distributing public goods.”
According to a recent NBC/WSJ poll, women care more about health care than men do; women also support Obama’s health-care plans more than men do.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual averages for 2008:
California joins three other states to allow young citizens to preregister to vote so that they will automatically registered when they turn 18. Other states may soon follow suit.
The Center for American Progress (CAP), in partnership with Maria Shriver, has broken new ground with the publication of “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything.” The report takes a hard look at how women’s changing roles are affecting our major societal institutions, from government and businesses to our faith communities, and examines how our society is responding to one of the greatest social transformations of our time.
Syndicated columnist Bonnie Erbe has a column today entitled “Women in the Political Spotlight,” in which she notes some surprise that “[w]omen voters are the most coveted demographic in not one but two gubernatorial races this year.” But there is something else surprising about the role of women in those two races that, unfortunately, no one in the media—despite several articles looking at the role of women voters - has yet to report. It’s the marriage gap!
In yesterday’s The Hill, reporter Aaron Blake wrote about the potential for a “precipitous drop” in voting by two RAE groups: African Americans and youths. While Blake was specifically analyzing potential turnout in November’s elections in New Jersey and Virginia, concerns about potential drop-off voting extend to the 2010 midterms.
Women’s Voices Women. Vote congratulates Lifetime Networks for being nominated by the Association of Cable Communicators (ACC) for its Golden Beacon Award. Lifetime received the nomination for its “Every Woman Counts” campaign, the entertainment industry’s only ongoing public advocacy campaign dedicated to amplifying women’s voices in the political process, encouraging them to register to vote, and to run for political office.
Statement by Women’s Voices. Women Vote President and Founder Page Gardner
As noted by Think Progress, National Review columnist John Derbyshire recently told radio show host Alan Colmes that he “wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep” if “female suffrage [were to] be repealed” and stated that the United States would “probably” be a better country if women did not vote. Mr. Derbyshire’s comments are as sexist as they are anti-democratic. Women now makeup a majority of the electorate in this country (they accounted for 53.7% of the votes cast in the 2008 election), but Derbyshire would be fine if they stayed at home on Election Day.
By Liz Weiss
New data released today by the Census Bureau shows a statistically significant increase in the national poverty rate in 2008. Most adults (18 and over) in poverty are women; 59 percent of adults in poverty are women; and 13 percent of all adult women are in poverty. Three-quarters of these women are women on their own—widowed, divorced, separated, or never married—despite being less than half (47 percent) of the population of adult women. These unmarried women have appreciably higher poverty rates than married women—20.8 percent versus 6.2 percent. Yet unmarried women live in a variety of situations—they may be living with partners, they may be mothers, they may be elderly—and each group has unique circumstances and needs. Indeed, poverty rates vary greatly for women by family status, age, and race.
Policymakers must ensure economic security for pregnant women and new mothers, write Melissa Alpert and Alexandra Cawthorne in the first of a new series from Center for American Progress.
Washington, D.C. – With unmarried Americans bearing a disproportionate share of the nation’s economic hard times, Women’s Voices. Women Vote (WVWV) today released a report titled, “The Economics of Unmarried America” aimed at drawing a clear and nonpartisan picture of the lives of unmarried Americans. The report’s findings were compiled by Lake Research Partners of Washington, D.C.
In 2008’s Presidential election 133 million Americans cast ballots, which represents the largest number of voters to ever participate in a U.S. election. This result is certainly a great accomplishment; however, WVWV strongly believes that it is time for significant reform to ensure that the remaining 79 million Americans who were eligible, but did not cast their votes, are encouraged and able to do so in future elections.
WVWV has drawn on the substantial research efforts of leading reform groups, but takes a new look at the challenges facing voters, registration groups, and state and local officials by highlighting the disproportionate effect of existing laws on under-represented populations. While young voters, African Americans, Latinos, and unmarried women are now the majority of the population, exit polls from the 2008 general election show that in the aggregate, these groups represented only 46 percent of the 2008 electorate.
For Many, Tremendous Obstacles Remain in Accessing Democracy Comprehensive report released today by Women’s Voices. Women Vote outlines critical areas in need of election reform.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/04/womens_voices_women_vote_repor.html