Manmy digital producer wajahat i ali,. Diverse nation, there is apathy, at least, about politics, congress, election and also about voting. Here is mikey, a loyal streamer, first of all you have to get americans to vote. Voter apathy , i love it when we get comments on google plus. Foreign policy isnt something i even consider. Considering both parties are so similar, ukraine, i. S. I. S, with whats happening i think this might change. Voters do tend to prioritize domestic issues, when deciding which candidate to put in office. But with International Crises galvanizing Public Opinion of late, should congressional candidates consider Foreign Policy . Maybe so. Especially mounting criticism against president obamas decisions overseas may hurt the Democratic Party come november. So how much does Foreign Policy matter in mid term elections and should recent events in places like iraq and ukraine be influential . Lisa and patrick. Following American Voter trends over the last 20 years. Thanks to both of you for joining us. Patrick, while its not unusual for Foreign Policy to be mostly absent, especially in mid term elections, what waj just mentioned, israelpalestine, i. S. I. L, they seem to be conspicuously absent in mid term elections. Why are candidates back wa ing away from these mid term elections . Thats the really interesting thing. The only real candidate that has a real clear Foreign Policy agenda is the independent whos running in kansas. The republicans and democrats dont want anything to do with this. Part of this the polling ive seen and the polling ive actually done is the voters are unhappy with both parties. They see both parties devoid of leadership, and as i heard comments from some voters earlier, domestic issues always trump these other foreign issues unless we are in a state of war. And when im looking at some of the polling out there now, and some of the races where i think there are four races for senate where terrorism or something about i. S. I. L. Is at least making its way into the debate between the candidates. Its less about the Foreign Policy itself and more about whether theyre a good leader, strong leader, protecting us at home rather than overseas. Lisa, is it too politically dangerous to stake a claim on these issues as a candidate when these issues are so rapidly changing . To an extent thats true but there are opportunity to kind of exploit national and International Issues in various races. So what were seeing right now is an opportunity for republicans to bring this up on the campaign trail as a criticism of the president s leadership. But then it also gives washington outsiders aim at congressional members for their stand on particularly times of when syria first began to bubble up as owned to now. People are starting are opposed to now. People are trying to seize upon that. Ally says, you cant ask questions like, why do they hate us . Gallup just came up with a poll saying most americans the most important problem is, guess, the economy. Foreign policy around 6 . Last month it was around 3 . And then we have this other tweet from brett, Foreign Policy is a forum for reinforcing tribalism. Has always been part of our concern. Nothing united nationnothing une politics. Anything new for 2014 . As a party, probably not but individually i think we could see some changes. And this is why control of the senate is so important. Even though Foreign Policy isnt playing out in these contests, the campaigns we are going to see on november 4th if the Senate Changes over to renewable control we could see a difference in whose voices get heard. A voice like rand paul who has argued against us getting into any confron confrontation at al. Both sides are afraid of staking out a position because nobody knows whats going to happen. Patrick waj was just mentioning some of these polls. And as a poller you know you can take numbers and find numbers you need to support a theory on either side. Now i was just looking at some recent data that showed the president s approval rate is down to about 36 , and more shocking is that support of women voters is down to 33 . If people are so disappointed how he is handling Foreign Policy shouldnt that be used as part of the campaign in mid terms . Yng bits Foreign Policy ini t Foreign Policy in those four states, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and i forget oh in georgia, georgia, michelle nunn, part of the nunn family, sam nunn she was part of the points of Light Foundation started by george h. W. Bush. In North Carolina, the senator is going after kay hagen, and also in New Hampshire were seeing this, the attack on senator gene sheheen. You talk about woman and his point about him being weak on women, or being weak among women in terms of Foreign Policy because theyre afraid whats going on overseas coming ashore here. And in the places where theyre using terrorism as an issue, in the states where the candidates are going against the are democratic incumbent, its needing the perception that were weak. Women who might vote for the woman democrat candidate in those states where its very close, they wont keep your kids safe from terrorists. The activities of i. S. I. L. And how the president plans to deal with that threat is certainly an inflection point. Whats his point, does it help democrats based on his recent speech or does it reflect doubts . Its about perception. Whether the president is seen as a strong leader and whether democrat candidates are seen as aligning with the president. At this point obviously the opinion polling is very low and theres 92nd lot that he can really do in the next couple of months thats going to fix that. Its a messy situation, polling for Foreign Policy intervention, to find lot of widespread support for that in america much less among lawmakers. Although youll see a stronger response from lawmakers than you will from the country as a whole. Thank you lee for joining us. Patrick you are sticking around. Is voting as accessible as it should be to all americans . Coming up. New voter laws requiring voter id and shorter voting qualifications im joe jensen, a social media entrepreneur and im in the stream. Welcome back. Voters in up to 50 states could face new rules, supporters of the new mirror say they will support stronger voter integrity and vo invoice fraud. Avoid fraud. Patrick murray, director of the Monmouth University policy Institute Still with us. Dale, what do you see as the most contentious issues around some of the voting laws to one degree or another have been enacted in about 34 states now . Well, its hard to isolate one type of issue or law that is the most conten shution, a cont. I think maybe there are three kinds of laws that are causing a lot of controversy right now. There are laws that deal with the registration process itself, kansakansas and arizona have las when people register to vote have to provide documentary evidence of their citizenship. Thats one example. There are laws that run up to election day and early voting which you mentioned at the top of the segment. So states like ohio, wisconsin and North Carolina that have attempted to cut back on early voting which has been increasingly popular and relied on by hundreds of thousands of voters across the country in recent elections. And third there are restrictions that are on election day itself. I think most notably in the form of onerous voter identification laws, one form of photographic i. D. In order to cast the ballot. Thats happening in places like texas and wisconsin as well. So there are lots of different kinds of laws that are at issue and a lot of different kinds of laws which we think unnecessarily restrict access to the franchise. Christian, go ahead and respond to that. One of the things im wondering is how do they affect these different groups. You would think laws would affect everyone the same. They do. Poll after poll after poll, show that americans support voter i. D. It makes sense. When you go to vote its a simple question. Are you who you say you are . Plaintiffs have not been able to find people that cant get the i. D. It is always these theoretical arguments. Voter i. D. Is widely supported. In earlier america we used to have elections on a single day. Some jurisdictions want to have elections in september, for instance. These things are simply not supported by most people. It is a bit more contentious online. Voter i. D. , shoulding governmentsanctioned voter i. D. Be required . No, it doesnt justify the disenfranchisement they cause. Aaron makes the point, most people dont have the money to pay the fees and we actually have a video comment from a loyal streamer jonathan. Give him a listen. Given the number of districts and u. S. Voter i. D. Laws are against the First Amendment of the accusatio constitution. All right patrick. In wisconsin where it might affect 300,000 voters, do you think these new i. D. Laws would restrict voting and are unconstitutional . We talk about the different laws and new standards. We do dont have a lot of evide, something i would trust thats objective, what impact they have as far as voter i. D. And registration. The only thing we know, if you allow inalternative voting on the weekend before the election does increase turnout among democrats. And we do know thats a fact based on have it local races, also some things that happened in 2012. It just allows those activists to get more people out over more days. But we really dont know what the voter i. D. Law impact will be. Except it could have an impact in this current election because a number of states have just instituted it. Some had it in 2012, others just instituted it. There could be a number of people who show up at the polls who forgot their drivers license and simply decide to go back home. In laces like kansas that now have this phot photoi. D. Law. The most interesting place in terms of control of the senate will be in georgia and North Carolina, which have cut down on some of their early voting which i think is going to have a bigger impact than it did there in 2012. And also the i. D. Law in wisconsin a place thats going to have an extremely tight gubernatorial race, the jury what im became of saying is actually still out on the actual impact of these laws. And the historical low impact speaking of this, whats the evidence that there is an impact, this gets me to think, in 2012 president obama won in two key states, florida and New Hampshire, both of those stats s had already enacted those laws. What is the impact of the voter legislation . I have a tremendous amount of respect for christian but let me just say this. It is actually not in fact the case that the plaintiffs in these cases have not demonstrated or presented actual individuals who would be disenfranchised ienfranchised i. Who had attempted to obtain i. D. And were unable to do so if you could just let me finish for a second and unable to do so. An 80yearold woman who was actually an elected official in her village, the equivalent of essentially a city council. She couldnt get an i. D. , she lied. Her underlying birth certificate had an error in it. She was told that she would have to pay 200 and then come back and get an i. D. Shirley brown was born in the greatesegregated south, she nevd a birth certificate. She went to the officials and tried to get an i. D. And was turned away. This is a few of the multiple people who testified at our trial, who were trying to get i. D. And were turned away and there are 300,000 registered who dont have acceptable i. D [simultaneous speech] lets let dale, lets let ifnt jump back in here. You had a client in your georgia litigation that testified about the same thing. Same thing in south carolina, same thing with viciedoian applewhite who testified here, who couldnt get voter i. D. And then she walked across the street and got it. We hear stories over and over and over again, designed to scare minorities. People are telling them their voter rights are at stake and they are not. Voter i. D. Is particularly among african americans, common sense and law. Patrick i want you to wrap things up for us. Is the government essentially dedicated to raceneutral Voter Registration or is there a big crack in the system . Governments in the system are dedicated to protecting political advantage and there is a sense that expanding of voter access helps democrats. And thats why in the 22 states that have passed these restrictions over the past three years only two of them were democratic legislatures. It is a political issue at the end of the day. All right, thanks to our guests, patrick murray, dale ho. Using your personal data. Welcome back. Political campaign advertisers have become more digitally savvy in the last few years. Viral messaging taking priority. In fact they may be targeting you more than ever by tapping into your personal data. Superpacs and independent political groups are employing databroker firms to collect information about constituents including everything from tv viewing habits to online purchases. Here to discuss this is alec howard, a columnist for the website tech republic, and expert on the governments use of new media. And out of washington, d. C, jordan lieberman. Online platform that collects data and thank you for being here. We use publicly available data thats the voter file which comes from publicly available sources. We rent commercial data and target online with cookies. Alex, revolutioning politics, how so and do consumers know how their data is being used . So much data you cant analyze it by traditional means and the then the democratization of the tools. Much more data that were before and lots of ability to analyze it gives different kinds of tools to the kind of political operatives that have been trying to manipulate the tools for decades like our guest. Trying to understand who voters are where they are in different districts how they might vote how they voted in the past, the publicly accessible things in your voter file. Whats different is explosive what you buy what you watch, who you might spend time with. Whether theyre influential on you and thats actually the place thats really interesting and maybe is things oar little bit different now. We can are a little bit different now. What they are likely to do in the future, you might be able to do an intervention to nudge them, using barely economics, different tools to do something, buy something, watch something, more crucially to register to voter or maybe to vote in a certain way, to watch a referendum on a different issue. We are spending so much time looking at screens, talking to each other in ways that you can get in there and say, why dont you destiny with this in this way and come back, follow up with a text message, email, targeted ad on facebook. How the email could be targeted to different things. The place you live where you work its the kind of individualized personalization of politics. And the campaigns in this cycle are going to tie into that more, than the president ial election in two years will go even further. Talking about that. Flil groups superpacs and individuals, are buying polls for different many results. Does sponge bob designate me as a liberal or conservative . We are giving up more data. Jordan, a concern that people have is first of all, people think i didnt know that these groups had what information about television stations. Lisa and i are watching zombies, and are really influenced. What concerns me is how much of my privacy is being exposed to people like you making money off of us . If you are looking at sponge bob, that classifies you as a tenyearold or somebody who likes cartoons. We protect, our pair mount concern, we do not target by your name aaddress or anything else personally obtainable. Nothing that identifies you as you. You cannot say the same for directly mail or over phones. The protection we have in place for digital have not been in place for direct maim or phones for decades. Up until recently or now, someone could knock on your door and say, we know you own a prius, we know you believe in this this this. That is not the same as digital advertising. Its less personal than direct mail . Police personal. The protections we have for digital are stronger than in place for direct mail or phones. He talks about how theyre very careful about that, reasons you dont want personal information about you areself, that could be hacked. But an individual persons understanding of how they voted in the past, what they might be persuadable often, what kind of talk points are useful, that could show up on someones doorstep. We have 30 seb seconds left. Alex. We are going to see more and more of these tools reaching out to people who arent watching television nymph. Between two firms and the president going there to talk to that, to a comedian, they want that because they wanted that part of the population learn about healthcare. Gov. That platform will gro and groww and grow. All right, thanks alex howard and jordan lieberman. Until next time waj and i will see you online. Huti rebilities, questions remain about the fragile peace field. Hello there im laura kyle, this is al jazeera live from doha. Also ahead on the program kurdish fighters say they have repelled an attack by i. S. I. L. On a syrian town but thousands of people are still fleeing for their lives. Ive not heard his voice or seen him and that definitely means hes