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Project 2025: Voters oppose the far-right playbook

Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention

The Democrats didn't have a meaningful primary, and no one cared

MTV launches campaign for more polling stations on campuses

Texas A&M University

One of the newly established polling stations is at Texas A&M University in Galveston.

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Sara Swann
By Sara SwannFeb 25, 2020
Sara Swann

As a staff writer, Sara covers a variety of democracy reform issues, including voting rights, money in politics, gerrymandering and civic education. Prior to joining The Fulcrum in May 2019, Sara reported on local government on Maryland's Eastern Shore for the USA Today network. She is a native West Virginian and a graduate of Syracuse University.

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College students represent a crucial voting bloc in the election, but for many young people voting isn't readily accessible.

A group of organizations promoting youth voting is partnering with MTV to change that. Launched last week, +1 the Polls is a first-of-its-kind campaign that aims to ease voting for students by establishing new polling locations on college campuses across the country.

The 2018 midterm election saw a massive increase in voter turnout from college students: More than 40 percent of them voted, double what happened in the midterm four years before. Expectations for youth turnout are similar, if not higher, for this year's presidential election — especially since Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, boosted by significant support from younger voters, has surged forward as the Democratic front-runner.

The Alliance for Youth Organizing, Students Learn Students Vote Coalition and Campus Vote Project are collaborating with MTV for the +1 the Polls campaign. Since 2012, more than 1,000 polling locations have closed, making it harder for young people to cast their ballots. Together these groups are offering resources and funding opportunities to open and protect polling places on public, private and community college campuses.

Four new polling locations, on campuses with a combined student population of 73,000, have been established so far. Three will be available for voters on Super Tuesday a week from now — at the College of Canyons in Santa Clarita, Calif., Texas State University in San Marcos and the Galveston campus of Texas A&M University. The fourth, at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., will only be used for the general election.

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The campaign is also on course to establish another dozen polling locations in seven states, on campuses with a combined student population of 438,000. Two more are in Texas, one is in reliably Democratic New Jersey but the rest are in states on the list of presidential battlegrounds: four in Florida, two in Ohio and one each in Minnesota, Arizona and Georgia.

Two historically black colleges and universities are part of this initiative: St. Philips College in San Antonio and Bethune Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Any groups or individuals interested in participating in the +1 the Polls campaign can request a toolkit and sign up for office hours and webinars that offer resources on how to help expand campus voting accessibility. The organizers are also offering "minigrants" to those who want to help, but don't have the financial means to do so.

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Make safe states matter

Richie is co-founder and senior advisor of FairVote.

It’s time for “safe state” voters to be more than nervous spectators and symbolic participants in presidential elections.

The latest poll averages confirm that the 2024 presidential election will again hinge on seven swing states. Just as in 2020, expect more than 95 percent of major party candidate campaign spending and events to focus on these states. Volunteers will travel there, rather than engage with their neighbors in states that will easily go to Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. The decisions of a few thousand swing state voters will dwarf the importance of those of tens of millions of safe-state Americans.

But our swing-state myopia creates an opportunity. Deprived of the responsibility to influence which candidate will win, safe state voters can embrace the freedom to vote exactly the way they want, including for third-party and independent candidates.

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The democracy movement ignores education races at its peril

Dr. Mascareñaz is a leader in the Cornerstone Project, a co-founder of The Open System Institute and chair of the Colorado Community College System State Board.

One of my clearest, earliest memories of talking about politics with my grandfather, who helped the IRS build its earliest computer systems in the 1960s, was asking him how he was voting. He said, “Everyone wants to make it about up here,” he said as gestured high above his head before pointing to the ground. “But the truth is that it’s all down here.” This was Thomas Mascareñaz’s version of “all politics is local” and, to me, essential guidance for a life of community building.

As a leader in The Cornerstone Project and a co-founder of The Open System Institute I've spent lots of time thinking and working at the intersections of education and civic engagement. I've seen firsthand how the democratic process unfolds at all levels — national, statewide, municipal and, crucially, in our schools. It is from this vantage point that I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that the democracy reform movement will not succeed unless it acts decisively in the field of education.

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A framework for democracy philanthropy

Stid is the executive director of Lyceum Labs, a fiscally sponsored project of the Defending Democracy Together Institute. The following is reposted with permission from his blog, The Art of Association.

It is challenging for philanthropic funders to get started and stay focused when it comes to strengthening democracy. The vagaries of our political system — really a complex system of systems cast on a continental scale — make it hard to know where to even begin. There are dozens of solutions that could be worthy of support. Alas, none are backed by dispositive evidence indicating that they are the single-best way forward. Then, every second and fourth year, elections reset the stage of democracy and reshuffle the cast of characters, often in unsettling ways.

Democracy's proximity to politics further complicates the philanthropic picture. The tax code bars foundations from backing or opposing candidates, parties and ballot measures. Many foundations take a belt-and-suspenders approach to this proscription on electioneering by avoiding anything that smacks of politics (as democracy-related causes frequently do). Other foundations, in contrast, push right up to the edge, seeking to exploit all the legal ways they can underwrite voter registration, education and participation, ostensibly on a nonpartisan basis, to further their political goals.

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This is the sixth entry in the “Fairness Matters” series, examining structural problems with the current political systems, critical policies issues that are going unaddressed and the state of the 2024 election.

We face complex issues, from immigration to the national debt, from Social Security to education, from gun violence to climate change and the culture war, from foreign policy to restoring a vibrant middle class by ensuring economic outcomes are more balanced and equitable.

Yet, neither party seems to be doing much about any of the political problems and policy challenges plaguing our nation. Instead of working on real solutions, our politicians spend their time and our national resources distracting and dividing us by using every tool at their disposal to retain power. Why is that? As Andrew Yang points out in a recent TED Talk (quoting a senator), “A problem is now worth more to us unaddressed than addressed.” It’s galling until you remember that the Democratic and Republican parties are private, gain-seeking organizations that exist to seek and retain power. As such, we should be wary of political parties because our interests and theirs are not aligned.

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Fisher is senior director of policy and partnerships for Unite America. Macomber is research manager for Unite America .

Whichever party wins independent voters will win the presidency and other key races this fall. A poll we at Unite America commissioned earlier this year provides clues for how Democrats and Republicans can appeal to these swing voters — including embracing their right to participate in all primary elections. Nearly 90 percent of independent voters from closed primary states support opening primaries, and nearly 60 percent said they would be more likely to vote for a party that pledged to support their right to vote in primaries.

A new bipartisan bill in Congress gives the parties a golden opportunity to do just that. The Let America Vote Act would immediately end closed primaries for congressional and presidential elections, while also providing financial incentives to states that enfranchise independents in state and local primaries. Currently, 15 states have closed congressional primaries, and 22 states have closed presidential primaries.

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