Type of site | News |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Independent |
| URL | theuptake |
| Commercial | No, 501(c) Nonprofit |
| Launched | 2007 |
| Current status | Online |
The UpTake is a Minnesota-based citizen journalist organization. It was founded in July 2007 and has provided online news coverage on a low budget since.
Because of its role as a provider of citizen journalism, the UpTake is a not-for-profit organization. As such, many of its journalists have to rely on technology, such as cell phone cameras, technically outclassed by professional equipment. This financial disadvantage has spurred the UpTake to develop innovative methods of low-cost information gathering and reporting, such as live broadcasting from cell phone camera feeds.
The UpTake's profile increased dramatically during the disputed 2008 U.S. Senate election in Minnesota, the home state of the UpTake. The UpTake provided full coverage of the recount process, winning accolades and citations from fellow news blogs FiveThirtyEight.com and MinnPost.com [1] and local Minnesota news outlets such as the Minnesota Independent . [2] On January 5, 2009, when the final batch of absentee ballots in the recount were opened, checked, sorted, and counted, The UpTake broadcast the entire process live via streaming video on TheUpTake.org. Its initial count for Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate Al Franken's lead after the absentee ballots were sorted aloud was 223; the number appeared on breaking reports on other websites, including FiveThirtyEight.com, [3] until an election official announced that Franken's unofficial lead was actually 225. [4]
The Center for Public Integrity listed the UpTake as one of its "Top Ten Websites from 2008". [5] In a tongue-in-cheek reference to an infamous ballot challenge by Republican candidate Norm Coleman's campaign, the list identified the UpTake as:
A nonprofit journalism site that has kept political junkies across the world abreast of every minute of the five-person Minnesota recount committee’s deliberations about Franken, Coleman, and Lizard People.
On January 18, 2011, the UpTake announced it had become the first online-only news organization to get a seat in the Minnesota Capitol press room. [6]
Norman Bertram Coleman Jr. is an American lobbyist, attorney, and politician. From 2003 to 2009, he served as a United States Senator for Minnesota. From 1994 to 2002, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota. First elected as a member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Coleman became a Republican in 1996. He lost his 2008 Senate reelection bid to Al Franken by 312 votes out of over three million cast. As of 2021, he is the most recent Republican to have represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate.
Alan Stuart Franken is an American comedian, politician, media personality, author, and actor who served as a United States Senator from Minnesota from 2009 to 2018. He became known in the 1970s and 1980s as a staff writer and performer on the television comedy show Saturday Night Live. After decades as an entertainer, he became a prominent liberal political activist, hosting The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio.
The Republican Party of Minnesota is the oldest active political party in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The Minnesota Republican Party’s platform is relatively moderate. The party’s main issues are economic growth, education, healthcare, civil rights, public safety, and environmental protection. It has a strong voter base in rural and suburban parts of Minnesota. It is the state affiliate of the Republican Party.
Elections in the United States are held for government officials at the federal, state, and local levels. At the federal level, the nation's head of state, the president, is elected indirectly by the people of each state, through an Electoral College. Today, these electors almost always vote with the popular vote of their state. All members of the federal legislature, the Congress, are directly elected by the people of each state. There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective governor and legislature. There are also elected offices at the local level, in counties, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, and villages; as well as for special districts and school districts which may transcend county and municipal boundaries. According to a study by political scientist Jennifer Lawless, there were 519,682 elected officials in the United States as of 2012.
The 2008 United States Senate elections were held on November 4, 2008, with 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate being contested. Thirty-three seats were up for regular elections; the winners were eligible to serve six-year terms from January 3, 2009 to January 3, 2015, as members of Class 2. There were also two special elections, the winners of those seats would finish the terms that ended January 3, 2013.
Donald Mark Ritchie is an American politician and a former Minnesota Secretary of State. Ritchie was elected the 21st Minnesota Secretary of State on November 7, 2006. He was re-elected in 2010.
Midwest Values PAC(MVP) is a political action committee, or PAC, that was founded by political satirist, best selling author, radio host, and US Senator Al Franken in the fall of 2005.
The 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota took place on November 4, 2008. After a legal battle lasting over eight months, the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) candidate, Al Franken, defeated Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in one of the closest elections in the history of the Senate, with Coleman's Senate predecessor Dean Barkley taking third place. Franken took his oath of office on July 7, 2009, more than half a year after the end of Coleman's term on January 3, 2009.
The 2008 United States presidential election in Minnesota took place on November 4, 2008, and was part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Employees in Minnesota are allowed time off from work to vote on the morning of Election Day. Minnesota is also one of the first states to adopt same-day registration in the 1970s.
John Hottinger is a Minnesota attorney and politician and a former member and majority leader of the Minnesota Senate. First elected in 1990, he was re-elected in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2002. A Democrat, he represented the old District 24 prior to the 2002 redistricting, and the current District 23 thereafter. The district included portions of Blue Earth, Le Sueur, Nicollet, Sibley and Waseca counties in the south central part of the state.
Formed in the fall of 2006 by Becky Bond, Michael Kieschnick and James Rucker, the Secretary of State Project was an American non-profit, progressive or liberal 527 political action committee focused on electing reform-minded progressive Secretaries of State in battleground states, who typically oversee the election process. They hoped to prevent a repeat of Florida 2000, where the projects backers claimed that a Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, took a partisan role in helping to determine the 2000 presidential election results. The Project was funded by George Soros and members of the Democracy Alliance including Gail Furman, John R. Hunting; Paul Rudd; Pat Stryker; Nicholas Hanauer; Rob Stein; Drummond Pike; Robert Bowditch; Scott Wallace; Susie Tompkins Buell; Albert Dwoskin; and Rob McKay.
Elections were held in Minnesota on Tuesday, November 2, 2010. Primary elections took place on August 10, 2010.
Elections were held in Minnesota on November 4, 2008. Primary elections took place on September 9, 2008.
The 2014 United States Senate election in Minnesota was held on November 4, 2014, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Minnesota, concurrently with the election of the Governor of Minnesota, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
The 2016 North Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 2016, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as elections to the United States Senate and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
The 2018 United States Senate special election in Minnesota took place on November 6, 2018, to elect a United States Senator from Minnesota to replace incumbent Democratic Senator Al Franken until the regular expiration of the term on January 3, 2021. Facing multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, Franken announced on December 7, 2017, that he would resign effective January 2, 2018. Governor Mark Dayton appointed Franken's successor, Tina Smith, on December 13, 2017, and she ran in the special election. This election coincided with a regularly scheduled U.S. Senate election for the Class 1 Senate seat, U.S. House elections, a gubernatorial election, State House elections, and other elections.
The 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Georgia voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump of Florida, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence of Indiana against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Georgia has 16 electoral votes in the Electoral College.
The following is a timeline of major events before, during, and after the 2020 United States presidential election, the 59th quadrennial United States presidential election, from November 2020 to January 2021. For prior events, see Timeline of the 2020 United States presidential election (2017–2019) and Timeline of the 2020 United States presidential election.
Following the 2020 United States presidential election and attempts by Donald Trump and Republican officials to overturn it, Republican lawmakers initiated a sweeping effort to make voting laws more restrictive. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, as of October 4, 2021, more than 425 bills that would restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states—with 33 of these bills enacted across 19 states so far. The bills are largely centered around limiting mail-in voting, strengthening voter ID laws, shortening early voting, eliminating automatic and same-day voter registration, curbing the use of ballot drop boxes, and allowing for increased purging of voter rolls. Republicans in at least eight states have also introduced bills that would give lawmakers greater power over election administration after they were unsuccessful in their attempts to overturn election results in swing states won by Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
