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  • Wisconsin election infrastructure is mostly secure — but inaccurate counts are hard to catch and correct

    John Bassett

    October 10, 2020 |

    Channel 3000 |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Wisconsin

    Same-day voter registration and the implementation of advanced cyberdefenses have bolstered Wisconsin's voting database, fortifying it against hackers and data breaches. Apprehension about election security prompted the formation of a watchdog group, Wisconsin Election Integrity, which regularly prompts the Wisconsin Elections Commission to update and improve the existing systems. Some machines have been identified as risky and measures to safely use and secure them are underway.

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  • Ervin Staub: A Holocaust survivor's mission to train ‘heroic bystanders'

    Daniel Gordon Joshua Nevett

    October 05, 2020 |

    BBC |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

    By training police officers to intervene when fellow officers engage in brutality or other misconduct, the New Orleans police department has reduced officers' use of force and increased public trust. After the killing of George Floyd by a police officer whose colleagues did not intervene, the ethical-policing model called EPIC (Ethical Policing Is Courageous) is expanding to dozens more cities as ABLE (Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement). It is based on the violence-psychology research of Ervin Staub, whose family was saved by "active bystanders" in Nazi Hungary.

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  • The Obama Justice Department Had a Plan to Hold Police Accountable for Abuses. The Trump DOJ Has Undermined It.

    Robert Faturechi

    September 29, 2020 |

    ProPublica |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States

    One of the most powerful tools used to reform policing practices, widely credited with restoring public faith in such troubled departments as the Los Angeles Police Department, is called a consent decree. The U.S. Justice Department sues cities where police abuses are seen as rampant. Then, under the watchful eye of a judge and independent monitor, the department agrees to a package of reforms. Under the Trump Justice Department, though, the tool has gone unused in new cases. In existing cases, the government has become passive, allowing cities to flout their agreements without consequence.

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  • Can an Algorithm Help Solve Political Paralysis?

    Julia Hotz

    September 18, 2020 |

    Scientific American |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United Kingdom

    Citizen assemblies bring together residents for in-depth discussions about solutions to social issues. This alternative form of democracy led to policy changes in many countries, including legalizing abortion in Ireland. In the UK, an algorithm was applied to form a 110-person “climate assembly.” In a multistage process, the algorithm selected a representative sample of the U.K.’s population, sometimes oversampling harder to reach groups to ensure inclusion. A small stipend was also offered to offset costs for people with lower incomes. The group submitted a final report with climate policy recommendations.

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  • Drink. Drive. Lose your job with BCSO: Sheriff says it's that simple.

    Dillon Collier

    September 15, 2020 |

    KSAT-TV |

    Broadcast TV News |

    3-5 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, San Antonio, Texas

    After two dozen of his deputies were arrested in 2018, many of them for drunken driving, the Bexar County sheriff imposed stricter rules, firing people for DWI offenses and barring them from future employment at the agency. He also began offering alcohol abuse treatment, to address the problem before it turns into an arrest. Since the start of 2020, only one deputy has been arrested on DWI charges.

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  • Interest in Community Police Watch Training Soars as Courses Go Online

    Meka Boyle

    September 02, 2020 |

    San Francisco Public Press |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

    Groups in the Bay Area that have successfully sought to have police disciplined for misconduct and won new police-accountability policies have turned their form of organized monitoring into a training platform for protesters nationwide. Responding to widespread Black Lives Matter protests, groups like Berkeley Copwatch and Wecopwatch use online education to teach hundreds of activists nationwide how to use videotape archives to systematically document abuses, and how to perform the work of legal observers at protests. Those activities are meant to act as deterrents to abuse.

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  • Courts rule

    Emma Athena

    August 20, 2020 |

    Boulder Weekly |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Massachusetts

    Almost half of U.S. states guarantee citizens’ rights to petition for ballot measures, but the coronavirus made gathering signatures in person infeasible. Massachusetts courts allowed electronic signatures, but other states have not approved virtual citizen initiative campaigns. Ballot initiatives allow citizens to advance solutions and enact structural changes without relying on support from elected officials. MA groups used DocuSign to gather 30,000 signatures to get a proposal for ranked choice voting on the ballot. Not all MA groups were able to quickly or successfully pivot to the e-signature process.

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  • This AI startup is tackling the coronavirus disinformation deluge

    Sirin Kale

    August 14, 2020 |

    Wired |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United Kingdom

    Logically is a fact-checking app that combines AI technology and human research to assess and label the truthfulness of news articles. The app has about 20,000 users after a soft launch in the UK, with a full launch planned for late 2020. The AI technology, a feature that makes the app unique, tries to match news claims to other sources and then human researchers take over to make a final judgment. The app has been busy fact-checking the extensive Covid-19 related misinformation. Some aspects, like technology glitches and slow fact-checking responses from researchers, still need to be worked out.

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  • Here's a look at the security precautions in Colorado's mail-in ballot system

    Rachel Lorenz

    August 13, 2020 |

    Colorado Politics |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Colorado

    Colorado has fine-tuned an effective mail-in ballot protocol for statewide elections and has one of the highest voter turnouts. Ballots are stored in tamperproof locked rooms that are continuously monitored and voters’ signatures are compared by bipartisan election judges to signatures in a state database. An audit of election results is also conducted to ensure the accuracy of the results. Officials in other states are reaching out to learn more about Colorado’s system, which is well-suited to keeping voters safe during a pandemic, but a lot goes into the system’s success and it takes time to implement.

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  • Youngstown, Ohio, Lost Its Only Paper. A 'Zombie' News Site Wants To Fill The Void

    Mark Oprea

    August 10, 2020 |

    NPR |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Youngstown, Ohio

    Mahoning Matters formed as a news site with laid-off veterans of the Youngstown Vindicator, filling part of a void in local accountability journalism in what is now the largest U.S. city without a seven-day print newspaper. Its funder, The Compass Experiment, set the startup on a three-year trajectory toward self-sustainability, an experiment that has yet to play out. Meantime, Compass successfully recruited a tiny band of Vindicator alumni, whose first stories have included unmasking the public official whose sexual misconduct compromised the management of a local police department.

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