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

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  • Make Voting Easy

    Voter turnout is higher where voting is made easy. Consider one innovation: vote-by mail. States that allowed mail-in ballots had an average of 10 percent more voting in the 2016 election than other states. More innovations include pre-registering young voters, automatically updating a voter’s address when they move, automatically registering citizens unless they opt out, and same-day voter registration.

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  • Seattle's radical plan to fight big money in politics

    Seattle tripled the number of people who contributed to local political campaigns by giving each resident $100 in “democracy vouchers” to contribute to the candidate of their choice. The concept was to counter the effect of big money in politics. Although the program was a widely popular idea, it ended up being expensive to run and only 3.3 percent of residents who received the vouchers actually used them.

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  • An evidence-based way to help fix our broken politics

    If elected representatives have a few hours to speak with their constituents, where’s what they should do: discuss policy issues online with a small group of randomly selected constituents. Participants appreciate the opportunity to speak with their representatives, rate them more highly, and are more likely to vote for them – even months later. The evidence supporting this method of engaging constituents is so compelling that researchers will present their work to all new members of Congress this year.

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  • These election tools are here to help you make sense of your long, complicated ballot

    Easy-to-use web apps provide information about candidates and referendums, gathering information all in one place for voters. BallotReady and We Vote are two such tools.

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  • How to tackle populism: Rebuild rural civic life

    Access to civic institutions, such as local newspapers, arts facilities, churches, and even breweries, help people feel more connected to their communities and less inclined to support populist candidates. Rural areas suffering from a lack of strong civic institutions are experimenting with promoting local businesses, organizing town halls, and even designing town mascots.

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  • Hospitals help patients get out the vote while stuck in bed

    Some hospitals are finding ways to help their patients vote. Penn Votes Project is an initiative between hospitals and the Penn Law School that helps patients fill out and notarize their absentee ballots. Then there’s Patientvoting.com where patients can find information on medical absentee voting by state. “Every citizen of the United States has the right to vote and we think getting ill shouldn’t impair that process.”

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  • The Seattle Experiment

    Seattle’s “Democracy Vouchers,” funded by a ballot measure to increase property taxes, provide money for residents to make campaign contributions, which increases civic participation and helps people running for office without political connections fund their campaigns. Every city resident receives four 25$ vouchers that they can sign over to the candidate of their choice and mail back in a pre-stamped envelope. Even though only 3% of vouchers were actually used, the number of people contributing to campaigns tripled and several non-establishment candidates were able to run campaigns and get elected.

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  • Thousands of American Indian voters in N.D. getting free IDs

    In the face of stricter voter ID rules, organizers are working to ensure that those deemed ineligible to vote in North Dakota because of their lack of street address - a group that is disproportionately Native American - are given a chance to participate in America's democracy. So far, projects spearheaded by groups like the Lakota People's Law Project and funded by donations have provided around 2,000 IDs.

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  • 'A labor of love': Postcard campaign writers seek to increase voter turnout in midterm elections

    After lackluster experiences phone banking during the 2016 presidential election, volunteers altered their strategy to write postcards to citizens to turn out the vote in the 2018 mid-term elections. Writing postcards was seen as a viable, and personal, alternative to door knocking, phone banking, mass leafleting, and even relatively modern techniques like mass texting.

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  • Law & Disorder: Progressive Prosecutors Hope to Dismantle Mass Incarceration

    Across the United States, individuals and organizations are seeking to shift the criminal justice system through District Attorney elections. From online communities like colorofchange.org, which seeks to support grassroots election efforts, to individuals like Minnesota’s Mark Haase, who is running on a platform of diversity and inclusion, to the Texas Organizing Project that wants to empower Black and Latinx communities, each of these missions seeks to create more equity and transparency in the criminal justice system.

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