The Fair Elections Now Act (H.R. 1826) reached a milestone today when the 100 and 101st members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed on to the bill.

The time to modernize America’s antiquated and inefficient voter registration system is now. Young voters and the country as a whole is more engaged than in decades.

The Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act will “take politics and partisanship out of the congressional redistricting process,” representing a major step forwards for democracy, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said on Wednesday.

After playing a pivotal role in voter registration and turnout this past November young people are continuing their electoral work by heading down to Salem Tuesday to lobby in support of HB 2386 which directs the Secretary of State to adopt an electronic voter registration system.

Millions of taxpayer dollars and countless local election official hours are wasted because of our cumbersome voter registration system.

U.S. PIRG supports National Popular Vote legislation which uses the existing constitutional authority of the states to select Presidential electors.

Immediately prior to the meeting of the Electoral College, supporters of a National Popular Vote held a press conference to call for implementation of a new method of selecting a President.

A new survey of state laws and election officials shows that, on the eve of the 2008 general election, nineteen states do not have laws, regulations or systems in place to properly implement a federally mandated 90-day pre-Election Day ban on systemic voter list purges.

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board upholds an Indiana state law that requires voters to present a state issued photo identification. In a 6 to 3 decision, the Court determined that voter fraud takes precedence over burdens the law places on voters.

CALPIRG released its scorecard today for the 120 members of the California legislature.

We write to thank you for your leadership on election reform at the outset of the 110th Congress with the introduction of the Count Every Vote Act (S. 804).

We write to thank you for your leadership efforts to strengthen the integrity of our nation’s elections with the introduction of the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2007 (S. 453/H.R. 1281).

“In a real democracy, the voters choose their representatives, not the other way around,” said Jeff Brooks, Advocate for TexPIRG. “The citizens of Texas deserve a system of congressional redistricting that expresses the democratically-expressed will of the people, rather than a system that only serves partisan political goals.”

Coalition letter to senators re: Support Implementation And Full Funding For HAVA

In addition to the redistricting measures, CALPIRG and Ohio PIRG are involved with several other measures on the state ballot and staff are available for comment.