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Center for Civic Design

Our goal is to make every interaction between government and citizens easy, effective, and pleasant. We bring civic design skills in research, usability, design, accessibility, and plain language to improve the voting experience, make elections easier to administer, and encourage participation in elections. Through our work, we have helped hundreds of election officials build their skills and capacity, and touched millions of voters in small but important ways. Across all of our projects, our research suggests that the voter journey—all of the information, decisions, interactions that get a voter from an intention to vote to actually casting a ballot—is a story of seemingly small barriers that can add up to a vote not cast. Our projects and research starts from the causes of those burdens. By smoothing out those barriers, our work can help more people vote, and strengthen democracy.

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The Latino voting bloc: Young, growing and complex
Photo by Element5 Digital

The Latino voting bloc: Young, growing and complex

Sugrue is vice president of research at the Latino Policy Forum.

The Fulcrum presents We the People, a series elevating the voices and visibility of the persons most affected by the decisions of elected officials. In this first installment, we explore the motivations of over 36 million eligible Latino voters as they prepare to make their voices heard in November.

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Silhouette of an American Democratic politician speaks to his constituents, with the country's flag on the left
Andrea Nicolini/Getty Images

The populace and the politicians

Chaleff is a speaker, innovative thinker and the author of “To Stop a Tyrant: The Power of Political Followers to Make or Brake a Toxic Leader.” This is the third entry in a series on political followership.

Saying that someone is a politician is not typically a compliment these days. Often, it is quite the opposite.

What a shame. Who do we want legislating and governing? Individuals with little skill for communicating? Who cannot compromise when they need to pass a policy solution to a real-world problem? Who doesn't understand the legislative process or the strategies for building a winning coalition?

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Mismatched letters speelling out "respect"
Thinglass

The power of disrespect: Introducing the Return2Respect movement

Marinace is the coordinator of the Return2Respect movement.

My first thought was to extol the virtues of respect. However, we all know respect is good and right and necessary. But do we really know the impacts of disrespect on individuals and our democratic principles?

Disrespect manifests itself through incivility, impacting how people relate to one another. A 2012 survey conducted by PRRI showed 82 percent of Americans believed lack of civil discourse among politicians was a serious problem. By 2023, a Pew study showed it still at 84 percent.

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