Why Tuesday?


Why Tuesday?, a cool new non-profit founded by New York attorney and civil rights activist Bill Wachtel, is using the capabilities of the Web 2.0 evolution to strengthen America’s democratic process through increased voter participation. Founded in 2005, the group works to make election reform an issue politicians can’t dodge. In an interview published this week by the LAist, Why Tuesday? executive director Jacob Soboroff says that their goal is to be the "woodpecker on the conscience of America", and advocate for making voting more secure, accessible and reliable. He says that they don’t have the all the answers, but want to make sure election reform is an issue politicians, opinion leaders and ordinary citizens are talking about.

One way they do this is to encourage individuals to become correspondents…interview and video tape politicians on what they believe should be done to strengthen democracy and voting. They then ask the correspondent to post the video on their YouTube group.

And what’s up with the name "Why Tuesday"? It’s one of the questions they encourage their correspondents to ask politicians…Why do Americans vote on Tuesday? They provide the answer on their website. But it’s fun to see the videos of politicians trying to answer the question.

Soboroff posts a different video every Tuesday that explores improving the democratic process, and has dealt with such topics as the Iowa Caucuses, what is clean money reform, to an interview with Sunlight Foundation friend John Bonifaz. John serves on the group’s advisor board, along with the likes of Jack Kemp, Bill Bradley and YouTube’s news and politics editor Steve Grove. This is really worth checking out.