Salon.com > elections

Do millennials care about abortion?

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:59:00 +0000

On the eve of Roe v. Wade's 40th anniversary, NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, 60, announced she would celebrate by stepping down and handing the reins to a younger generation -- the same one she had been arguing for years lacks the pro-choice intensity and commitment of her own.

Formed originally to repeal abortion bans before Roe, NARAL is now most closely associated with lobbying on the federal and state level, and for its close ties to the Democratic Party. Keenan's departure after eight years follows an election cycle when Democrats didn't apologize for being pro-choice -- and won.

This last election year also featured unprecedented public mobilization, across generations, on issues around abortion, birth control and rape. Two men, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, most closely associated with a total abortion ban lost Senate bids they'd seemed poised to win. Akin, too, came from a House of Representatives where antiabortion and anti-family planning legislating had seemed like a full-time job, but whose actual legislative victories have been few.

Election Day registration: The anti-voter ID

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:15:00 +0000

"Voter ID" has become the GOP's weapon of choice in the fight to keep Democrats from voting, but progressives may have found an answer: Election Day registration.

Virtually unknown two years ago, voter ID laws, which require citizens to present a certain form of government-issued photo identification at the polls, came into vogue when Republicans used their electoral gains in 2010 to pass them in states from Texas to Wisconsin to South Carolina. Approximately one in 10 potential voters in these states lack photo ID, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, without which they will not be able to cast a ballot in November. Studies have found that minorities, college students and poor voters -- groups that tend to vote Democratic -- will be disproportionately impacted by these new laws.

38 dead as raids continue in Kenya

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:08:00 +0000

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — As clashes between farmers and herders in southeast Kenya escalated Monday with 38 people killed, including nine police officers, the Red Cross suggested the military be deployed to the area.

The tit-for-tat cycle of killings may be related to a redrawing of political boundaries and next year's general elections, the U.N. Humanitarian coordinator for Kenya, Aeneas C. Chuma, said late last month, although on the surface it seems driven by competition for water, pasture and other resources. As the next year's general election in March approaches, political tensions and tribal animosities have increased due to competitions among potential candidates.

In the latest bloodshed, armed farmers allegedly attacked a village of their semi-nomadic livestock-herding neighbors, the Red Cross said. Eight children were among those killed in the dawn attack in which over 300 people from the Pokomo tribe allegedly raided Kilelengwani village of the Orma tribe of herders, said Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet. The raiders torched 167 houses.

Gullet said the government should consider dispatching the military to the area to reinforce police patrols and impose a curfew in the area to prevent further escalation of the deadly counter-attacks.

Mexico’s alcohol ban

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:00:00 +0000

GUADALAJARA, Mexico -- American holiday makers planning to head south to Mexico for the weekend be warned: bring your own alcohol.

La Ley Seca, or the dry law, will be in force from midnight tonight to midnight Sunday for the Mexican elections.

Nearly 80 million people are eligible to vote for the country's president, mayors, governors and lawmakers, and the government wants them to be sober and compos mentis when they do it.

The law dates back to the Mexican revolution at the beginning of the 20th century and bans the sale of booze 24 hours before a major election and on the day of the vote, though some areas are now exempt from the restriction.

Elections will be held Sunday.

Viva la diferencia

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:36:00 +0000

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — Heartthrob Justin Bieber packed more than 200,000 screaming fans into the Zocalo square in the heart of Mexico City for a free concert promoted by the local government earlier in June.

Paul McCartney packed a large number into the same place one month earlier. An outdoor ice rink, billed as the biggest on the planet, occupies the square during the Christmas season.

These spectacles — sometimes derided as circuses — arrive often in Mexico City, and have proved popular.

It's also a prop in the local political picture, as Mayor Marcelo Ebrard and his left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) have played ringmaster promoted the "circus" as a way of winning votes among working-class and poor residents.

Ebrard cannot run for re-election, but his party and its allies are expected to retain Mexico City in a landslide in the July 1 local elections. That’s the exact opposite of other parts of Mexico, where the once long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) leads polls for the presidential contest scheduled for the same day.