Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Citizens can ensure a credible election, Part 2

election workers

Poll workers are part of a sacred trust, writes Debilyn Molineaux.

Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images

Part 1 was published prior to the 2020 election.

Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Remember to thank your poll workers. If you are part of the vote-in-person community, the poll workers who assist you received training for handling a flow of voters. They also received education to call for help in the case of voter intimidation. I’m one of these poll workers.

Elections are part of our constitutional republic – citizens are responsibility for electing their representatives who govern the nation. Despite what the politics industry and pollsters would have us believe, elections do not feature rival teams where one is a winner and the other a loser. Elections as part of democracy provide a method for moving forward despite our disagreements in priorities, beliefs and level of influence.

More than anything else, our disagreements about the how and what of governance should be founded on an agreement of election integrity. What are our standards for deciding an election has integrity? Or not?


As I received training as a poll worker, I was struck by the apolitical nature of the process itself. Everyone is treated the same. People work in pairs or more, always a check for accountability and witness. The supervisors are available to answer questions. There is no discussion of the candidates, ballot measures or such allowed. Our elections are a sacred process for our democratic republic, if we protect them as such.

Why would someone profane the sacred process of elections to plant seeds of doubt? I propose that conflict profiteers – those people who make a living on dividing us – have ulterior motives. The conflict profiteers primarily seek two things: money and power. They cloak themselves in “ truthiness ” to feed our love of conspiracy theories. And it’s worked.

Conflict profiteers have struck at the core of democracy itself: our elections.

Does voter fraud exist? In very small numbers, yes. The Heritage Foundation database on voter fraud documents 62 election irregularities in 2016. In 2020, there were 17 cases. In the 2020 cases, two were about ineligible voters. The remaining 15 convictions involved forged signatures for ballot measures and other crimes to influence local elections. No evidence of presidential vote interference. None. Zero. Zip. Trump lost the election. It’s time to look forward and give up the nonsense.

It’s up to us, the citizens, to accept our responsibility to restore faith in our elections. To be helpful, to be involved and to administer the election ourselves. Across the nation, election administrators from county offices, their staff and the thousands of volunteers are stepping up. In two weeks’ time, they will dedicate themselves to a free and fair election for the rest of us.

Let’s trust each other to have good intentions. Let us trust, but verify, each action we take as election workers. Our nation depends on us. We must depend on each other.

Read More

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

The B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber flys over the 136th Rose Parade Presented By Honda on Jan. 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

After a short and successful war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush claimed in 1991 that “the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.” Bush was referring to what was commonly called the “Vietnam syndrome.” The idea was that the Vietnam War had so scarred the American psyche that we forever lost confidence in American power.

The elder President Bush was partially right. The first Iraq war was certainly popular. And his successor, President Clinton, used American power — in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere — with the general approval of the media and the public.

Keep ReadingShow less
Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are
a close up of a typewriter with the word conspiracy on it

Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are

The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case. Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. Still, to a more dangerous reality: the conspiracies taking hold and being amplified by political ideologues are increasingly correlated with violence against particular groups. Fortunately, promising new research points to actions we can take to reduce conspiratorial thinking in communities across the US.

Some journalists claim that this is “a golden age of conspiracy theories,” and the public agrees. As of 2022, 59% of Americans think that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories today than 25 years ago, and 73% of Americans think conspiracy theories are “out of control.” Most blame this perceived increase on the role of social media and the internet.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why a College Degree No Longer Guarantees a Good Job
woman wearing academic cap and dress selective focus photography
Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash

Why a College Degree No Longer Guarantees a Good Job

A college education used to be considered, along with homeownership, one of the key pillars of the American Dream. Is that still the case? Recent experiences of college graduates seeking employment raise questions about whether a university diploma remains the best pathway to pursuing happiness, as it once was.

Consider the case of recent grad Lohanny Santo, whose TikTok video went viral with over 3.6 million “likes” as she broke down in tears and vented her frustration over her inability to find even a minimum wage job. That was despite her dual degrees from Pace University and her ability to speak three languages. John York, a 24-year-old with a master’s degree in math from New York University, writes that “it feels like I am screaming into the void with each application I am filling out.”

Keep ReadingShow less