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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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Michelle Martinez, University of Michigan (U-M)

Michelle Martinez, the inaugural director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment at the University of Michigan (U-M)

At the University of Michigan, Environmental Justice Starts With Who Gets to Decide

When Michelle Martinez talks about climate change, she does not begin with temperatures, emissions, or models and projections.

She begins with people. For Martinez, the inaugural director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment at the University of Michigan (U-M), climate change is already being experienced through the housing, economic, and political crises confronting communities today. And that makes climate justice inseparable from a more basic civic question: Who has the power to decide what happens to a community?

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Hand of Man Pointing to an I Voted Sticker

Close Up Hand of Man Pointing to an I Voted Sticker Place on His Shirt

Getty Images

Voters Want Results. The Midterms Made That Clear.

The 2026 midterm elections were never going to be a referendum on one person. They were always a test of whether Americans believed their leaders were addressing the issues affecting their daily lives.

Voters delivered a clear message in the midterm elections. The results were historic. Democrats not only reclaimed control of the House of Representatives, but also captured a majority in the U.S. Senate.

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A woman protesting holds a sign that readds, "Our Raise! Labor Safety Costs, surrounded by other people.

Uber drivers participate in a rally outside of the Uber Headquarters on January 05, 2023 in New York City. Uber drivers in NYC participated in a 24-hour strike outside of the company's NYC headquarters

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

21st-Century Gig Workers Need Portable Benefits

In recent years, the US labor force has been undergoing a fundamental transformation. In today’s "Uber economy," gig workers, freelancers, contractors, temps, permatemps, remote workers after COVID, and so-called “independent workers” have been championed by Silicon Valley and Wall Street as the “new way to work”—the wave of the future, especially with AI changing the nature of work itself.

Many US consumers have driven in an Uber taxi, but don’t realize that most drivers earn below minimum wage after accounting for vehicle expenses, gas, maintenance, and unpaid time waiting for passengers. Those drivers are so-called “independent contractors,” so the billion-dollar Uber is not responsible for providing healthcare, Social Security contributions, workers' compensation, or unemployment compensation, not to mention sick leave or vacation pay.

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