On this episode of the How Do We Fix It podcast, Rob Richie from the nonprofit advocacy group FairVote discusses constructive changes to how candidates for public office are elected in the face of gerrymandering, low voter turnout, negative campaign ads, increased polarization and other challenges.
Donald Trump, Oval Office, August 2026
In mid-July, President Trump gave a lengthy primetime address on election integrity in order to promote the "SAVE America Act." The bill would require voters to provide proof of citizenship at the ballot box, but it has drawn criticism.
However, over the speech's runtime, elections themselves are never the true subject.
Instead, President Trump dedicates much airtime to building up the specter of immigration as the opponent his election reforms are meant to defeat, rather than enumerating the merits of his policy—ultimately reflecting the true center of his platform.
The speech's preamble highlights the successes of the Trump presidency, including steps taken against inflation, tax cuts from the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, and what the president sees as foreign policy wins.
What the president really wants to talk about is election fraud, and when he brings it up, he points at China for being responsible for the results of the 2020 election as well as long-term voter information theft. Later on, he makes references to election fraud being used in Venezuela to rig the election for the regime's benefit. Undocumented immigrants voting in elections is already an extremely rare occurrence.
Based on data compiled from the Heritage Foundation's own election fraud database and analyzed by the American Immigration Council, there have been a total of just 89 cases of proven noncitizen voting nationwide since the year 2000 — and the large majority of those
involved lawful permanent residents, not undocumented immigrants, who in many cases said they didn't realize green-card holders were barred from voting.
Cases specifically involving undocumented immigrants number just 16 in total over that same 25-year span. While this still isn't good, nor does it rule out unreported cases, it's nowhere near the scale the president implies when he cites a DHS figure of 278,000 noncitizens supposedly registered to vote.
Throughout his speech, President Trump emphasizes the specter of immigration more than the substance of election security itself. Early on in the speech, he touts border security as a significant achievement against a political backdrop highly sensitive to the violence ICE agents were displaying at the time, and to the continued arrests of noncriminals and citizens. He uses this rhetoric to not only justify ICE's actions to date, but also to prime the audience for their continued application going forward.
Further, some of the required documentation could be an issue even for lifelong American citizens to provide. Over half of the American public doesn't hold a passport — American or otherwise — meaning that under a proof-of-citizenship mandate, tens of millions of eligible voters would need to track down and produce documents, like a birth certificate, that many people don't have readily on hand. Critics of the SAVE Act have pointed to this gap as the bill's more concrete, near-term risk: not that it stops fraud that barely exists, but that it creates a new paperwork barrier for citizens who do have the right to vote.
That DHS figure, notably, has not held up well since the speech. The number originated from letters Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's department sent to California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in mid-July, claiming a combined total of more than 250,000 noncitizens on their rolls; Trump rounded that up to 278,000 in the address itself. Officials in all three states that responded publicly pushed back hard, calling the claim unsubstantiated and asking DHS to hand over its methodology and underlying data. Nevada's secretary of state called the number "wildly speculative," and Pennsylvania's secretary of the commonwealth said the state's rolls were properly maintained and asked DHS to share its list of names for independent review. New Jersey's own investigation, prompted by the DHS letter, found a Motor Vehicle Commission data error had led to roughly 6,600 self-identified noncitizens being registered — and about 400 who'd cast ballots — a fraction of the 35,000 DHS had claimed for that state alone.
By late August, DHS had walked the number back, telling Nevada it could confirm only 185 cases from an initial list, with the rest still needing "additional review." In other words, the headline statistic that anchored the immigration section of a primetime presidential address didn't survive basic follow-up from the very states asked to verify it.
The clearest example is married women who've changed their surname. Roughly 84 percent of women who marry take their spouse's name, and estimates from voting-rights researchers put the number of American women without a birth certificate matching their current legal name at close to 70 million; the SAVE Act's text doesn't spell out a path for using a marriage certificate or name-change order alongside that birth certificate to close the gap. Republican sponsors of the bill, including Rep. Chip Roy, have dismissed the concern as "absurd armchair speculation," arguing the legislation already directs states to set up a process for resolving name discrepancies.
Democrats and voting-rights groups counter that the bill's text doesn't guarantee that outcome, and that it shifts the burden of proving eligibility from the government onto the voter for the first time. Whichever reading holds up, the dispute underscores the same asymmetry running through the speech: the harm the SAVE Act is pitched to prevent is measured in the dozens, while the population that could be caught up in its paperwork requirements is measured in the tens of millions.
Taken together, the speech's structure tells its own story. A president ostensibly addressing the nation about the mechanics of election security spent the bulk of his airtime not on ballot design, machine audits, or chain-of-custody procedures, but on China, Venezuela, and the looming threat of noncitizens at the ballot box.
Isabel Papp is a summer fellow with The Fulcrum and a student at Northwestern University, double‑majoring in Journalism and Political Science. A bilingual journalist, she is a proactive, equity‑centered storyteller committed to elevating underrepresented voices.
As new voting restrictions spread nationwide, When We All Vote's 'Party at the Polls' brings 5,000 community events to turn out voters ahead of November.
It’s no secret that 2026 has tested our democracy. This year alone, the Supreme Court has continued to dismantle the Voting Rights Act, state legislators are rushing to execute a generational gerrymander in the South to undermine Black and Latino voters, and state houses across the country are considering more than 330 laws that make it harder for everyone to vote. At the same time, the administration continues its attempts to consolidate federal power over elections, including a push for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act. These nationwide efforts to ensure voters are confused, tired, and apathetic are not a coincidence — they are voter suppression.
But here’s the hope: the one thing we’ve learned despite the many challenges we’ve seen in 2026? We need each other now more than ever.
The voter suppression tactics being used today are not new. But neither is the way we fight back — together. People in this country used to build our lives around gathering together in faith groups, labor unions, PTAs, neighborhood associations, community centers, fraternities and sororities, local NAACP chapters, and more. The result? The Voting Rights Act. The Fair Housing Act. The Equal Pay Act. These wins have proven that communities coming together in hope can be a powerful antidote to intimidation and fear.
How we show up in this moment will determine our future — and we need to be as organized and as energized as those who push anti-democratic policies and agendas. And as we go, we need to hold on to hope, to joy, and to celebration.
That’s why When We All Vote is launching our largest-ever Party at the Polls program with more than 5,000 community events across the country as we head toward November’s election. Making voting a celebration can look like a Ride to the Polls in Navajo Nation with Protect the Sacred, line dancing and games with AME churches in Savannah, a Quince to the Polls with Harness in Texas, or events on community college campuses nationwide in partnership with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.
These events are joyful by design — but they’re also strategic. Research shows Party at the Polls can increase voter turnout by up to 4 percentage points. And just as importantly, the program is a powerful way to combat intimidation tactics and threats of violence at the ballot box. But no one organization can do this alone. As history shows, protecting democracy has always required coalitions, and we’ll be joined by organizations — like Divine Nine fraternities and sororities, the ACLU, and State Voices — that have led this work for decades.
As we bet on the power of community, we must also commit to protecting voters’ safety and right to cast a ballot. Lawyers looking to protect free and fair elections and safeguard the rule of law can join groups like We The Action and the Election Protection Hotline, observe the official canvass in states across the country, support election officials, restore voting rights to people with past convictions through organizations like the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, and more.
As a Black woman — a Black mother — living in Mobile, Alabama, the work to build a system that works for us all, and for the generations ahead of us, is deeply personal to me. Even as every day seems to bring another alarming headline, I’ve witnessed something even more powerful. Looking at history, at my neighbors supporting each other, and at the people leading this work across the country, I know the power of the people is still greater than the people in power. And with 80,000 elections across all 50 states this fall, we the people have 80,000 chances to show up in ways that are impossible to ignore — together.
Kalisha Dessources Figures is the When We All Vote Senior Advisor.
A rose stands on the 9/11 Memorial for the North Tower in front of 3 and 4 World Trade Center on September 7, 2026, in New York City.
As the nation and the world pause this week to honor and reflect on the 25th Anniversary of the terrorist attack that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center and killed more than 3,000 people, I am moved to share a very personal reflection.
After serving as Chief of Staff to Governor Celeste of Ohio and in the Clinton-Gore Administration, where I experienced firsthand how the major institutions in our country interact to favor the powerful over we the people, I became deeply concerned about the health of our democracy. It was clear to me that, beyond voting and national polling, the American people were not at the table to influence the decisions that most affect their lives.
In March, 1995, I left my office in the White House and founded AmericaSpeaks, whose mission was to bring We the People back into the foundational role envisioned in our founding documents. I created the 21st Century Town Meeting based on the New England Town Meetings, which, to this day, mean that citizens determine their town and school budgets. By adding technology – computers and voting devices – we could scale this work and bring thousands of Americans together to weigh in on important decisions.
By 2001, the AmericaSpeaks 21st Century Town Meeting had been successfully used to influence Social Security policy nationally, determine city budgets, and foster regional cooperation among counties. So, when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation invited us to demonstrate its efficacy to ensure citizen voices would impact the rebuilding of Ground Zero, we were honored and ready to serve
A documentary film, “9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero,” premieres this week on September 10th at the Brooklyn Public Library. 5,000 citizens, representative of the demographics of New York City, came together on July 20, 2002, to review the conceptual plans for rebuilding. The film tells the story of what happened leading up to that day and what followed. What you see today on the 16 acres that comprise Ground Zero was forever changed by the collective voice of those 5,000 citizens and the decision-makers' commitment to respect them.
To this day, I am humbled and honored that the AmericaSpeaks team and the hundreds of volunteers that came together to make that day possible were able to serve in this way.
But for me, having worked in the field of deliberative democracy for more than 30 years, the film's message is as much about our future as it is about what happened during the rebuilding of Ground Zero.
Today our democracy is under severe attack from forces within. Given the failure of our branches of government to play their rightful roles in the balance of power to ensure that our republic stays grounded in the core values of our founding documents, it is We the People who must act to ensure that our democratic republic can celebrate another 250 years.
The vast majority of Americans know that where we are today is wrong and want to do something about it. Our national narrative – by both traditional and social media – constantly feeds us negative storylines that we are too divided and polarized to come together. And yet in thousands of communities across the country we are already coming together and solving problems. We just do not know about it unless we live in a community that is already doing it.
Citizen Assemblies – a more recently developed method for creating the collective voice of representative citizens to solve problems -- first proliferated across Europe and Canada and now are finding fertile ground here at home. Citizen assemblies are currently happening statewide: on property taxes in Connecticut; on education policy in Maine; and on water policy in Nevada. In communities across the country, cities and counties are using Assemblies to deal with tough issues that the political process has not been able to solve: Petaluma, California; Fort Collins, Colorado; Akron, Ohio; Snohomish County, Washington – just to name a few.
Given the current profound political dysfunction at the federal level, it would not be possible to do this kind of work nationally. But we are building the necessary infrastructure and civic muscles all across the country, which means our capacity to bring the wisdom of the American public into our national institutions is growing rapidly.
I am honored and delighted that this documentary film captures the legacy of AmericaSpeaks' contribution to the field of deliberative democracy, but I am even more pleased that it shows what We the People can do to impact public policy currently.
Today, 16 acres in Lower Manhattan are vibrant and full of life while simultaneously deeply honoring and respecting the loss of life that occurred there on September 11, 2001.
Today, our country is shaken by forces of destruction that do not respect our founding values, but We the People have the power to right our ship.
To explore organizations helping citizens strengthen our democracy, visit the Healthy Democracy Map:
healthydemocracymap.org
To learn more about the story behind the 2002 town hall and its impact, watch the documentary “9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero”:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0H967H5TV?ref_=atv_dp_share_cu_r
Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer was the first Executive Director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, an organization that woks to reduce political dysfunction and incivility in our political system. As a leader in the field of deliberative democracy, she works to restore our democracy to reflect the intended vision of our founding fathers.
Bruce Springsteen performs the song “Streets of Minneapolis” after receiving the ACLU Ralph Ellison Award for Defenders of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Arts, Business, Science and Sports at the ACLU Awards Ceremony at Washington Hilton on July 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.
When I first wrote in early July about Bruce Springsteen and the upcoming Power to the People Festival, the event was still taking shape as a hopeful but not yet fully defined effort to confront the growing tensions in our democracy through music.
A great deal has occurred since then.
The festival has now been officially announced, clearly presented to the public, and left with no doubt as being one of the most deliberate cultural interventions of the 2026 election season; Springsteen's own way of describing it as a night of "music and resistance" shows that this will not be just another concert.
It became clear in late May when Springsteen previewed the festival live from the stage at Nationals Park. "Tom Morello and I will be back in D.C. on Oct. 3 for another night of music and resistance," he told the crowd, asking fans to "make a goddamned ruckus with us." That was not the kind of thing you would expect from a normal Springsteen concert announcement. It clearly signaled that the festival would align with Springsteen's long-standing view that democracy is defended not only in voting booths but also in public squares where citizens gather, speak, and refuse to be quiet.
Since my July writing, the festival’s contours have sharpened. Morello released the full lineup, and it reads like a modern map of protest music: Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Joan Baez, Brittany Howard, Cypress Hill, Killer Mike, Dropkick Murphys, Serj Tankian, Jack Black, The Linda Lindas, and others. Shepard Fairey — whose artwork has become a visual emblem for political conscience — will contribute both design and a DJ set. The organizers describe the event as a celebration of “freedom, justice, equality, and rock and roll.” Still, the underlying message is unmistakably civic: ordinary people have extraordinary power when they come together through art and collective action.
That message fits Springsteen’s recent posture. In my earlier writing, I argued that democratic erosion rarely arrives with dramatic ruptures; it arrives quietly, through resignation and silence. Springsteen has spent the past year trying to shake audiences out of that silence. His criticism of the current administration has been blunt, and his insistence that citizens must speak up when democratic norms weaken has stayed resolute. Morello’s framing of the festival fits squarely within that tradition. This is not about left or right. It is about whether Americans still believe they share a democratic inheritance worth defending.
The festival’s infrastructure reinforces that ambition. Freedom Village, a separate gathering place at the concert, lets attendees meet with nonprofits, advocacy groups, artists, community partners, and organizations working on voting access, grassroots organizing, mutual aid, and civic learning. VoteRiders will receive a portion of ticket proceeds, and HeadCount will be on-site registering voters. These are not symbolic movements. These are operational commitments to strengthening democratic participation at a moment when confusion about voting rules and ID requirements threatens turnout nationwide.
Of course, the political tension about the event is impossible to ignore. In today’s hyper‑polarized climate, even a call for unity can be interpreted as provocation. Springsteen’s criticism of President Trump routinely rockets to the top of news cycles, often followed by immediate condemnation on Truth Social. That dynamic will almost certainly intensify as October approaches.
This tension is exactly what makes the festival worthwhile. The festival is trying to achieve something rare by securing the kind of cultural and media exposure designed to encourage Americans to do more than just vote—such as volunteering, organizing, turning up, and taking responsibility for the country's future. It is not certain whether such momentum can emerge in a divided political environment. Nevertheless, the initiative reflects a belief that music can still inspire public involvement when traditional politics fails.
American democracy has never relied solely on ballots and campaigns; it has always needed cultural traditions that reinforce a shared future, such as abolitionist hymns, Dust Bowl ballads, and civil-rights anthems. Music has served that function in the past, and Springsteen believes it can be done again by deliberately positioning itself in that tradition.
A festival held one month before the midterms, featuring artists known for their political voices, certainly will not escape partisan interpretation and inevitably will be read through a partisan lens, regardless of the organizers’ stated intent.
In fact, it may even deepen the tension between culture and politics. But it also expresses a broader truth: democracy is not only something we vote in—it is something we live in, and sometimes the best way to achieve that is to gather at a festival, listen to music, and let music remind us all what we still hope to be. As Marvin Gaye pleaded more than half a century ago, “You know we’ve got to find a way.” That line still echoes today—a signal that the work of keeping a nation together belongs to all of us.
David L. Nevins is the publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
