Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Nearly three-quarters of South Carolina election officials have quit

News

Building with "Early Voting Here" sign

A polling station in Bamberg,, S.C., home of Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

Luzia Geier/picture alliance via Getty Images

Norman is a graduate student at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Here in South Carolina, the spread of distrust in the integrity of voting has caused election administrators to quit at high rates.

According to Issac Cramer, executive director of the Charleston County Board of Elections, 70 percent of top election officials across the state have left their jobs because of threats to their safety and constant pressure from voters.


Even though there is no evidence of significant voter fraud or election rigging, former President Donlald Trump and many of his allies continue to insist that the 2020 election was stolen. His base would like to see enactment ofmore stringent voting laws to resolve what experts, and the courts, say is a nonexistent problem.

Election officials and volunteers insist that they do everything they can to ensure a fair election process. However, those reassurances have not eased the minds of Trump voters and groups like South Carolina Safe Elections. As politicians continue to push the narrative that elections are unsafe, it is hard to see an end to this problem.

Listen to the on-the-ground report for more details.


Read More

 Side view of young African American male voter filling in ballot

An opinion piece argues that America must revisit Reconstruction after the Trump era, starting with the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Pressmaster/Getty Images

Radical Reconstruction: Looking to the Past To Move Forward

The last 11 years of electoral politics have plunged our nation into new lows: withdrawal and reentry into Middle Eastern conflicts, a politicized public health response during a pandemic, an attempted coup of the American government, and continual police brutality against people of color. Donald Trump’s existence on the political stage, in office or out, has held our nation hostage through repeated crises, leading us to the most divided time in our nation since the Civil War. The path forward for our young country doesn’t just require new ideas: we need to finally follow through on Reconstruction.

A blip in American history, Abraham Lincoln’s post-Civil War vision, called Reconstruction, was the proposed path forward for Southern reentry into American life. In exchange for loyalty to the Union and some guarantees of black civil protection, Lincoln prepared to readmit secessionist states into the Union, albeit with political restraints on numerous Confederate leaders.

Keep ReadingShow less
Ballot with "None of the Above" selected

Frustrated with the two-party system? An argument for a tripartisan alternative: an Independent Caucus of 5-6 senators with leverage over major legislation.

donald_gruener/Getty Images

The Two-Party System or What?

The evidence continues to come in -- lately from USA Facts and the Unpopulist-- that the majority of American voters don't like our two-party political system. Yet there is no consensus on what we want to replace it with.

There does seem to be an assumption that if you don't like the two-party system, then you want a political system which supports more than two parties, namely a multi-party system.

Keep ReadingShow less
Person looking at computer screen at work.

Brenda Núñez, voter registration supervisor for Nueces County, shows the home screen of the state's voter registration system in 2024. Election officials say they're still struggling to use the system, known as TEAM, to complete essential tasks.

(==Gabriel Cárdenas for Votebeat

Election Officials Are Scrambling To Process Voter Registration Backlog Using a System They Say Does Not Work

At 6 p.m. a few days after the state sent Randall County election administrator Shannon Lackey a backlog of 3,388 of voter registration records, she was still at her desk, processing them after a full day of work.

She planned to stay late and get as much done as she could, then keep working from home. Lackey, whose department has five employees, isn’t expecting overtime pay or compensatory time off to make up for the extra work caused by the state error.

Keep ReadingShow less
multiethnic American voters participating in the US election, showcasing the concept of choice in a democracy

Presidents who lost the popular vote often faced economic turmoil. See the pattern from Harrison to Trump and how a 50-state strategy could change it.

Alan Mazzocco/Getty Images

Path Forward from Economic Consequences of Non-Popular Vote Presidents

While losing the popular vote does not inherently cause economic ruin, the structural political weakness of entering office without a democratic majority mandate often compounded the economic challenges their administrations faced. These terms were marked by distinct economic hardships, structural imbalances, or severe financial crises.

Destabilizing Partisan Protectionism

Keep ReadingShow less