Voting

The GOP Once Supported the Youth Vote

by Jennifer Frost

Once Republicans championed opening the franchise to 18 year-olds. Today, it seems the party is unwilling to win those votes and would prefer to restrict them. 

Human Beings Make Elections Work – Were You Kind to Poll Workers Today?

by Amel Ahmed

Overworked, underpaid, and now harassed and even threatened: election workers are the backbone of democracy and the nation can't afford to have them pushed out of their jobs. 

Fed Up with Emails from Democratic Pols? You're Not Alone

by Lara Putnam and Micah Sifry

The Democratic Party's strategy of electronic communications to raise fear and money is backfiring, as voters see little change despite their contributions. The party must reach people at their doorsteps, not through their inboxes. 

Teaching the 26th Amendment With The New York Times

by Jennifer Frost

A historian of the 26th Amendment offers a lesson plan for using newspapers as primary sources to teach how young Americans succeeded in lowering the voting age to 18. 

Attacking Sunday Voting is Part of a Long Tradition of Controlling Black Americans

by Rebecca Brenner Graham

Efforts to limit "souls to the polls" campaigns to bring Black voters to early voting stations after Sunday church services is part of a broader campaign of voting rights but also reflects longstanding conflicts revolving around Black Americans' traditional use of Sunday as a day of leisure and communal freedom. 

New York Times Seeks Firsthand Accounts of Voting

The Times and ProPublica are providing a reporting mechanism for problems with voting or vote suppression locally, as well as for reporting stories about the voting experience across America. 

Making History: A Dispatch From Early Voting

by Ron Steinman

We must commend those who stood on line and stood up for democracy. That these people waited and then voted means that as a people we are still on track in preserving the Republic and what we contend, despite attacks on its value, it still stands for. 

If the Electoral College is a Racist Relic, Why has it Endured? (podcast)

Harvard professor Alex Keyssar's book examines the persistence of the electoral college against rising calls for its abolition, and the influence of racism on the institution. 

The Electoral College Will Destroy America

by Jesse Wegman

The real problem with the Electoral College isn't that it inflates the power of small states. It erases the votes of tens of millions through state winner-take-all election rules. 

100 Years Later: The Complicated History Of The Women’s Suffrage Movement (Audio)

Historians Adele Logan Alexander and Lisa Tetrault discuss the complicated history of women's suffrage including racial divisions in the movement. 

Black Women in Politics are No Longer a ‘First.’ They are a Force

by Martha S. Jones

Kamala Harris is not merely a barrier-breaker on the ballot; she’s part of a generation of Black women leaders who are changing politics — and our collective future.

When Politics Hits Home: Pandemic Moms are Descendants of Soccer and Votes-for-Women Moms

by Laura Kumin

Over 100 years ago, legions of women found ways to convey to non-activist women that the vote was crucial to them and the well-being of their families.

Don’t Believe the Lie That Voting Is All You Can Do

by Daniel Hunter

Stop minimizing the work of movements.

It Takes a Long Time to Vote

by Jonathan Coopersmith

No federal law governs wait times. Nearly two-thirds of voters in 2012 and three-quarters in 2018 waited less than 10 minutes. But long wait times are a chronic problem primarily for Latino and Black voters in “precincts with high minority populations, high population, and low incomes.”

Take Some Deep Breaths and Prepare to Wait for Election Results

by Ellen L. Weintraub and Kevin M. Kruse

Americans and the American news media must face the fact that the safety of voters requires us to slow down on reporting election results as more voters will cast ballots by mail. 

How Martin Luther King Jr.'s Groundless Traffic Ticket Changed History's Course

by Michael Warren

The incident, that took place on this day 60 years ago, proved to be the catalyst for electoral change.

Despite the Risks, Letting Americans Vote by Mail in November is Good for Democracy

by Jonathan W. White

Today’s debate about broadening access to absentee ballots amid a pandemic should be less controversial than the Civil War era struggle over creating an entirely new system.  

How Americans Have Voted Through History: From Voices to Screens

From shouting candidates' names, to hanging chads to electronic scanning, the nature of voting has a long, sometimes bumpy history in the United States.

What People Power Looks Like in a Pandemic Democracy

by Corey Robin

How will democracy function under quarantine? History may have the answer.

A Lesson on Voting Rights—And Suppression—During a Pandemic that Students Won’t Learn in Textbooks

Here is a lesson for students and everybody else on the history of voter suppression in this country.