Voting Archives - Public Seminar

Politics

Run on Abortion

Kansas is a sign: If Democrats champion winning issues, Democrats will win

August 5, 2022 • by Jill Filipovic

Abortion bans are moral disasters. The result of these bans shocks the conscience of any decent person. That’s part of why we saw Kansas go the way it did. It’s also why Democrats need to run on abortion rights....

Politics

Race and Redistricting

Gerrymandering is old, but the prohibition of racial gerrymandering is a legacy of the Civil Rights Movement’s success

March 15, 2022 • by Jo Freeman

Eventually, all legislatures conformed to the Supreme Court’s mandate that the only basis for representation was population. States where one party dominated the legislature gerrymandered to consolidate its position. In states with large minority populations which largely voted for one major party and whites the other, party gerrymandering became racial ...

Democracy

In Voting, Demographics Is Often Destiny

Sex, race, religion, and party polarization

January 21, 2022 • by Jo Freeman

In voting, demographics is often destiny. In particular sex, race and religion are primary sources of partisan conflict. Race and religion are long standing themes. Sex, more specifically the role of women and how it affects relationships between the sexes, manifested itself less directly until late in the twentieth century....

Activism

Georgia On My Mind

The Democratic Party in Georgia has come a long way since the 1965 Voting Rights Act

January 28, 2021 • by Jo Freeman

“The concept of political equality...can mean only one thing—one person, one vote." ...

North America

Democrats Have a Religion Problem

2020 confirms a trend of religious voters moving away from the Democrats, with a few notable exceptions

December 2, 2020 • by Musa al-Gharbi

_____ In a previous essay I demonstrated that Democrats have been consistently losing ground with both people of color and people of faith in virtually every midterm and general election cycle after 2008. Republicans, meanwhile, have seen consistent gains with many constituencies. What occurred in 2016, therefore, was not an aberration – but the culmination ...

Democracy

New Voters and Bells: What Toppled Trump

In one of the most pivotal elections in our history, first-time and young voters found their voices

November 24, 2020 • by Ryan Keeney

Joe Biden is the President Elect. As we wait for the Trump administration to finish its thrashing death throes in court, it’s important to remember in a time of vastly unequal wealth distribution (thank you Mr. Bezos!), in spite of overt attempts from Republicans to suppress voters in the 2020 ...

New Voters and Bells: What Toppled Trump

Democracy

Measuring the Health of Our Democracy

As Trump spins his conspiracist narrative, Biden prepares to assume the presidency and the GOP holds him at arm’s length

November 5, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Counting continues in the 2020 presidential race. There is a lot I’d like to say about what this election looks like, but I will wait until it's final. Remember: the fact that polling officials are taking time to count the ballots is a good thing, not a bad one. And ...

Democracy

Confessions of a Poll Worker

When I volunteered to work on Election Day, my melting pot neighborhood taught me about the complexity of Trump’s America

November 5, 2020 • by Mitchell Abidor

It’s not the least of the paradoxes of the Trump era that this wannabe authoritarian did more than any decent man to lead Americans to assume their civic duties. Trump’s attacks on the electoral process led 52,000 New Yorkers to sign up for work at the polls, 18,000 more than in ...

Literature

Poetry to Vote By

Reading Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic on the eve of the election

November 3, 2020 • by Evangeline Riddiford Graham

How many of us are brave enough for art? At the bakery down the block, polling shows Trump surging ahead. Each purchase of an election-themed cookie—Biden or Trump, with red, white, and blue sprinkles—is tallied by the bakers as a vote in favor for the relevant candidate. “Our forecast is never ...

Democracy

The Showdown Between Democracy and Autocracy

Why the broad anti-Trump coalition must prepare for a post-election crisis

October 29, 2020 • by Claudia Koonz

Could democracy in the United States die? A number of troubling signs, such as Donald Trump’s refusal to endorse a peaceful transfer of power and his refusal to condemn white supremacists, lead many to worry about what has, until recently, been unthinkable. As a historian of Nazi Germany, I share this ...

Democracy

While Trump Flails, Biden Quietly Moves Forward

Re-election initiatives increasingly look like spaghetti thrown against the wall — and it isn’t sticking

September 18, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

————— It feels like power is slipping away from Trump and his administration, and they are trying desperately to claw it back. Meanwhile, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his team are trying to criticize the president without getting sucked into his orbit, so they can focus on moving the country ...

While Trump Flails, Biden Quietly Moves Forward

Politics

Harnessing Federal Power for Police Reform in America

What we can learn from Reconstruction and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

July 8, 2020 • by Richard Johnson and Desmond King

History suggests that the response to the current crisis of policing in the United States must be a stronger role for the federal government. Yet few activists within the Movement for Black Lives are demanding that the federal government flex its coercive muscle. Given the racism of the current occupant ...

Voting

Run on Abortion

Kansas is a sign: If Democrats champion winning issues, Democrats will win

Race and Redistricting

Gerrymandering is old, but the prohibition of racial gerrymandering is a legacy of the Civil Rights Movement’s success

In Voting, Demographics Is Often Destiny

Sex, race, religion, and party polarization

Democrats Have a Religion Problem

2020 confirms a trend of religious voters moving away from the Democrats, with a few notable exceptions

New Voters and Bells: What Toppled Trump

In one of the most pivotal elections in our history, first-time and young voters found their voices

Measuring the Health of Our Democracy

As Trump spins his conspiracist narrative, Biden prepares to assume the presidency and the GOP holds him at arm’s length

Confessions of a Poll Worker

When I volunteered to work on Election Day, my melting pot neighborhood taught me about the complexity of Trump’s America

Poetry to Vote By

Reading Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic on the eve of the election

The Showdown Between Democracy and Autocracy

Why the broad anti-Trump coalition must prepare for a post-election crisis

While Trump Flails, Biden Quietly Moves Forward

Re-election initiatives increasingly look like spaghetti thrown against the wall — and it isn’t sticking

Harnessing Federal Power for Police Reform in America

What we can learn from Reconstruction and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

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