Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Technology Works Behind the Scenes to Keep US Mail-in Voting Secure

    With many more people are voting by mail in the 2020 presidential election, technology is helping to make sure ballots are counted and that voters are informed. Although the system is not perfect, it does allow for voters to follow the progress of their ballot to see if there may have been a problem at some point during the process.

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  • Wisconsin's April primary was a mess. Here are five changes officials hope will make the next election smoother.

    Wisconsin officials learned important lessons from the problematic primary election. Moving forward, an informational mailer is being sent to educate voters about absentee voting and an absentee ballot request form will be automatically sent to 2.7 million registered voters. Ballots will be tracked using an intelligent barcode and more ballots will be ready to be sent out ahead of time to meet increased demand. Voters will need to provide contact information on their ballots so that clerks can contact them in case of any errors and more polling places will open to reduce long lines and wait times.

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  • Germany's coronavirus response is a master class in science communication

    To contain the spread of the coronavirus, Germany relied heavily on communication and information tactics that prioritized the voices of health and science officials. Although misinformation was still a problem for the country, the overall approach in enhancing scientific communication appears to have payed off given that country has one of the lowest mortality rates in Europe.

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  • Your Zoom Interrogation Is About To Start

    Traditional police interrogation tactics that emphasize invading someone’s personal space to increase anxiety, read body language, and prompt confessions have had to undergo changes during the pandemic, some of which offer new advantages. While police say they lose some needed leverage to do their jobs when interviews are conducted through masks, outdoors in public, or via teleconferencing screens, the workarounds encourage taping of all interviews and more transparency when the public can observe how police work.

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  • How a Coalition of New York Activists Revealed Police-Department Secrets

    When New York legislators abolished a state law that had long shielded police officers’ disciplinary records from public scrutiny, they were not just responding to recent protests but also to activism over many years by reform advocates and families of victims of police violence. Long-running legal challenges had failed to pry the records loose. But activists – opposed by police unions and their allies – had used public testimony, publicity, and their families’ stories to lay the groundwork for changes that then came quickly after George Floyd’s death sparked nationwide protests of police brutality.

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  • South Korea's Key Weapon to Stop the Pandemic? Smartphones

    In South Korea, the government is using smartphone technology, including various independent apps and text messaging, to implement contact tracing. This has enabled the country's economy to avoid a full shutdown. Early results comparing South Korea to other countries shows that this digital strategy is just as successful as implementing complete lockdowns.

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  • How Taiwan beat the coronavirus

    Since the outbreak of Covid-19, Taiwan – a country of nearly 24 million people – has reported less than 500 cases and only seven deaths, largely due to the rapid implementation of a public health emergency response plan. By successfully using a combination of quarantine measures, social pressure, technology, and consistent communication, the country was able to begin reopening in May.

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  • The long quest to stop a ‘Sugar Daddy' judge

    Arkansas’ judicial oversight agency has the staffing and persistence to hold bad judges accountable in ways that counter a nationwide pattern of weak enforcement and judicial impunity. The Arkansas Judicial Discipline & Disability Commission has a staff that’s almost three times as large as the national per-judge average and it publicly disciplines judges more than twice the national rate. It is one of the few such agencies that will investigate anonymous complaints, frequently a barrier to starting judicial misconduct probes.

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  • How the University of Dayton divested from fossil fuels — and what happened to its bottom line

    In 2014, the University of Dayton, a Catholic institution, made a public commitment to divest its investment portfolio from any fossil fuel funding. The university has since fulfilled and stayed strong on its commitment, but the process involved putting together committees to identify and replace fossil fuel companies in its portfolio, looking for more environmentally ethical companies, and investing in more sustainable companies and practices.

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  • Democracy Reform: Voters Not Politicians

    Voters Not Politicians is a grassroots initiative that, with the help of hundreds of volunteers, ran a successful campaign to defeat gerrymandering in Michigan. The state has a citizen-led ballot initiative option, so the group held townhall meetings and gathered over 410,000 voter signatures to get the initiative on the statewide ballot. The measure was challenged in courts, but the group raised funds for legal help and the initiative passed by a margin of 61-39 percent. The new law requires that an independent group of average citizens will decide district boundaries with full transparency.

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