How to Stop the Dismantling of Democracy
Phil Roeder/Flickr
Taryn MacKinney, | May 14, 2021, 1:07 pm EDT
In the last few years, many elected leaders have attacked voting rights, cast doubt on free and fair elections, and served private interests over the public good. To pull American democracy back from the brink, we must use the full force of the law and four laws will, if passed, set us on the right track.
Democracy under siege
Let’s pretend, for a moment, that it’s November 2022 election season. You’re a proud Georgian, born and raised, and you’re ready to cast your ballot. What do you do?
Ohio Needs to Strengthen, Not Restrict Voting Rights Protections
Michael Latner, Kendall Science Fellow | May 11, 2021, 1:42 pm EDT
The strength of voting and elections law varies greatly between states. There are three key areas where these laws differ, 1) voter eligibility and ease of registration, 2) ballot access and time to vote, and 3) ballot processing, rejection rates, and quality control. Ensuring that everyone’s vote counts the same is also a crucial aspect of electoral integrity, as measured through bias in results, including malapportionment, and racial and partisan gerrymandering. Ohio is one of many states where legislatures are now moving to enact new restrictions, facing pressure from extremists motivated by false allegations that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
Inside Democrats’ Scramble to Repel the G.O.P. Voting Push
Lacking effective legislative or legal ways to stop Republicans from introducing new voting limits, Democrats are applying pressure on their allies in Washington and trying to energize supporters.
Protesting new restrictions on voting at the Texas State Capitol on Thursday in Austin.Credit.Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press
May 7, 2021Updated 7:08 p.m. ET
Democrats are struggling to build a surefire legal strategy to block new Republican-backed restrictions on voting rights, relying on broadly worded warnings and urgent pleas that are designed, in part, to build political pressure on the White House, Congress and the Justice Department to act, as well as to engage their supporters to mobilize in advance of the 2022 midterm elections.
Democrats are struggling to build a surefire legal strategy to block new Republican-backed restrictions on voting rights, relying on broadly worded warnings and urgent pleas that are designed, in part, to build political pressure on the White House, Congress and the Justice Department to act, as well as to engage their supporters to mobilize in advance of the 2022 midterm elections. The approach is aimed at persuading recalcitrant Senate Democrats in Washington to pass a sweeping federal elections bill, painting the new Republican laws in the news media as suspect on arrival, and convincing the swing voters who last year helped elect President Joe Biden that the GOP is more interested in fixing elections for itself than in winning those voters back. Locked out of power in the Republican-run states that are enacting laws making it harder to vote, Democrats are engaged in a partywide effort to push back against the legislation that has as much to do with winning hearts and minds outside
Element 5/Unsplash
Andrew Rosenberg, director, Center for Science & Democracy | May 6, 2021, 4:30 pm EDT
At its core, much of science is about understanding what is happening in the world. That is certainly true of the science of democracy, studying how the structures of democracy work. And American democracy is frail and eroding under the weight of baseless attacks on the rights and ability of citizens to exercise their right to vote and to be fully represented in our democracy.
I have had the privilege of working with UCS Senior Fellow and Cal Poly Professor of Political Science Michael Latner for the past three years, learning from him about the science of democracy. Here are a few of the things I learned: