Are you warmed up to vote? Are your "vote hands" ready? Ours sure are. 

Tuesday, Sept. 25, is National Voter Registration Day and we're reminding everyone to make sure all their friends and family are registered to vote. Send them to www.aflcio.org/register. The process is simple and quick. 

Did you know in 2008, 6 million Americans didn't vote because they missed the registration deadline or didn't know how to register?

Make sure all your friends and family are ready to vote this November. Send them to www.aflcio.org/register.

If you’re not sure, go ahead and register now. Visit www.aflcio.org/register to double check. 

Think voter fraud is a problem? Think again. The chance of voter fraud occurring in a federal election is 1 in 2.3 million. A person is more likely to be struck by lightning or attacked by a swarm of bees than commit voter fraud. 

Thirty-four states introduced voter ID requirements that would effectively disenfranchise more than 21 million eligible voters who don’t have the required IDs—mostly people of color, low-income voters, students, seniors and people with disabilities.

The NAACP recently released this video, Dangerous World, which shows voter fraud isn't dangerous but stopping 21 million people from voting is. 

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to send the voter ID law back to the lower court for evaluation on whether the law disenfranchises voters "is a positive step," says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. 

But it is also a reminder of how cumbersome voter ID laws have become to voters. We are less than 50 days away from a critically important election, and many voters are going to face problems voting because of confusing voter ID laws. In Pennsylvania alone, more than 758,000 residents lack a state-issued ID and nationally the problem is even bigger. 

A little rain never hurt anybody and it certainly didn't stop hundreds of Pennsylvania voters from getting their voter IDs today at the Driver & Vehicle Services office in Pittsburgh. 

Pennsylvania voters who need IDs—thanks to a new state law that disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania residents, including civic-minded seniors— were assisted by representatives from the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), along with the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and various community groups. Because of the new law, Pennsylvania state officials say that more than 785,000 voters don’t have a state-issued photo identification.

Voters scored another victory against the growing voter suppression efforts by Republican lawmakers when an Iowa judge ruled that new state election rules imposed without any public hearings could not be implemented. Polk County District Court Judge Mary Pat Gunderson said the new rules:

have created fear that new citizens will lose their right to vote.

Voter ID laws are real threats to our democracy.

Join us at the AFL-CIO to discuss Tova Andrea Wang's book, The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans' Right to Vote, Wednesday, Sept. 19, at 1 p.m. Wang, a senior democracy fellow at Demos, says today's voter suppression tactics have roots going back a century and a half and pose a serious threat to the democratic process. 

RSVP here. 

This is a cross-post from the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) blog, Pilot Partisan. 

The 2012 election is just 56 days away. ALPA pilots: Will you be flying on November 6^th? On call? Not sure? 

Check out ALPA’s handy voter information guide, available on our website at ALPA 2012 Voter Guide, to find out all the rules and deadlines for registration and early and absentee voting in your state. We hope you find it useful, and we hope that you will vote. 

Sometimes support can come from the most unlikeliest of places. CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer tweeted today his father is one of the 750,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania who does not have a state-issued ID and won't be able to vote this November because of a voter ID law passed by state Republicans. 

Cramer tweeted: "I have a problem. My dad, a vet, won't be allowed to vote in Pa. because he does not drive, he is elderly, and can't prove his citizenship."

Talking Points Memo (TPM) reported this afternoon:

A federal judge in Ohio on Friday restored early voting rights in the three days before the election, ruling in favor of the Obama campaign.

U.S. District Judge Peter C. Economus ruled that "restoring in-person early voting to all Ohio voters through the Monday before Election Day does not deprive UOCAVA [Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act] voters from early voting."