I know I've had too many memes of this cat, but I just can't get enough of him! Nice grumpy cat.
Anyways, like I said, I was pretty productive this week, if I do say so myself. I updated some lists for the Chamber again on Tuesday. It was more exciting than usual because my computer spontaneously shut down three times when I was updating all those lists/groups/rosters/etc. Oh, did I say exciting? I meant annoying. Silly computer.
Apart from that, a super awesome Chamber person asked me to gather video clips about voter fraud and paid petitioning this week. It was pretty cool learning a bunch of information about voting and initiative reform doing this. Courtesy of Google, "an initiative (also known as a popular or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote." I think I've mentioned this before, but voter initiative reform has been a popular topic in Arizona, what with some voter fraud we've been seeing recently.
I believe the Chamber discussed some bills involved with preventing voter fraud at recent meetings as well. One such bill that's been proposed makes major changes with how signatures are collected for initiatives so that voter fraud can be prevented and signatures are less likely to be challenged (since some of the problem lies in voters including fake signatures in their petitions). Another bill that's been proposed is one that ensures that signatures are collected from each legislative district instead of statewide. This was proposed in an effort to prevent voters from outside the state from petitioning in Arizona.
In regards to my research, I actually managed to finish my surveys! Yay! And even while I was sick? I deserve a brownie or multicolored balloons or something. I just need to send them to my faculty adviser for a read-through to make sure I didn't mess anything up and then I can distribute them to my sample population. I have two surveys currently: one for you, the amazing public, which I will try to distribute to as many people as possible, and one for lobbyists and elected officials. It's going to be interesting to see what the results of the survey are. Once I publish the survey intended for the general public, I'll include it in a post next week so you all can take it too. I'm very excited.
Anyways, I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll see you next week!
Hi Shreya! Sounds like you are having a wonderful time at your internship! I just have a quick question: what do you intend to learn from your surveys? I am glad you could finish them even while you were sick! Looking forward to the next post!
ReplyDeleteHi Brent! I'm hoping to present stories about lobbyists in objective ways so that I can judge how people really feel about lobbyists' work without attaching too many biases along with it. Thanks for reading!
DeleteHey Shreya! Great post here and its really cool how you got to learn about bills to help mitigate voter fraud. With the first bill you talked about, what about the process are legislators going to change? With regards to your surveys—glad you could complete them even when you're sick— what do you hope to see from the results? Also do you have a number of legislators/lobbyists you want to give the second survey to? Again can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteHi Anirudh! I believe with the first bill, legislators hope to get valid IDs attached to the signatures and other precautions that make sure people actually know they are signing these petitions so that people can't cheat the system and just fake random people's IDs or include people who are no longer alive in the signature count (it happened in Philadelphia!). With the surveys, I'm hoping to present stories about lobbyists in objective ways so that I can judge how people really feel about lobbyists' work without attaching too many biases along with it. I don't have a set number of legislators/lobbyists; I'm just hoping to get it out to as many as I can! Thanks for the questions!
DeleteHi Shreya, great job on the blog as usual. I was just curious to see how often does voter fraud happen and how would you check for fake petitions?
ReplyDeleteHi Michael! I don't have exact statistics, but I know voter fraud has been increasing in recent years. As I discussed with the first bill I mentioned here, legislators hope to get valid IDs attached to the signatures and other precautions that make sure people actually know they are signing these petitions so that people can't cheat the system and just fake random people's IDs or include people who are no longer alive in the signature count (it happened in Philadelphia!). Thanks for reading!
DeleteHi Shreya!
ReplyDeleteI love all of your grumpy cat memes! Also, I hope you're feeling better! :) I just wanted to know if you had any idea as to what you think the results from the survey will look like? Do you have a set group of people who are going to take your second survey! Looking forward to your next post (and some more grumpy cat memes)!
Hi Anjalee! Thank you! I'm happy you like the grumpy cat memes! I'm guessing that the results to the surveys will include relatively positive opinions compared to how lobbyist stories are popularly presented in the media and how people generally view them. I don't have a set number of legislators/lobbyists; I'm just hoping to get it out to as many as I can! Thanks for reading!!
DeleteHi Shreya, great job on the blog. I just wanted to know what will be you steps on conducting the survey.
ReplyDeleteHi Javier! For the survey, I'm just going to be releasing one to as many people as I can in the general public and the othr one to as many legislators/lobbyists as I can. With the results, hopefully I can find some interesting new information that we didn't know before about how people view the legislative process. Thanks for reading!
DeleteHi Shreya! The cat memes never get old. I have a question: You make your internship sound like a lot of work, and now that you have experienced the life of a congressman/woman, would you try and run for a job as a congress person?
ReplyDeleteHi Marvin! I'm glad you like the cat memes! I haven't actually had too much experience with seeing how members of Congress work daily on a firsthand basis, so I'm not sure. I mostly work around lobbyists and other Chamber members/officials. But I will say that being a congresswoman would be a lot of work and I don't think I'll be running for office any time soon :)
DeleteHi Shreya. I found your post very interesting this week, but I would l just like to ask a few questions regarding voter fraud. First off, how big of a problem is voter fraud currently (is it happening at a large scale or at a smaller scale)? Also, how do they prove or even find out if a signature is fraudulent or not?
ReplyDeleteHi Alex! I believe voter fraud is happening at a pretty large scale. It is a big issue in Arizona currently. When people get signatures for a petition, I believe they need to provide identification for that person as a citizen and as an actual human being. So providing fake IDs or using IDs of people who are dead would be an example of fraudulent behavior (it happened in Philadelphia!). Thanks for reading!
DeleteHi Shreya! Your week sounded very productive not to mention cool. It seems like the Chamber of Commerce is pretty invested in combatting voter fraud etc. So I was confused about people petitioning from people outside a state. Don't you have to be resident of Arizona to vote here so shouldn't it be very easy to combat this?
ReplyDeleteHi Kevin! I think that bill was involved with making sure that we strengthened effective methods to ensure someone from out of state doesn't petition for something in Arizona. So though it may have been monitored previously, I assume this bill makes that process more efficient and accurate. Thanks for reading!
DeleteCongrats on finishing the surveys, even while sick! What kind of questions will the surveys ask, and do you have a group of lobbyists to take the surveys?
ReplyDeleteHi Stirling! Thank you! The surveys will just surround how people view a certain incident or person. I'm hoping to just have lobbyists at the Chamber take the survey and spread it around to other lobbyists they know. Thanks for reading!
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