Ample fear, zero silver bullets, at campaign disinformation conference
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Ample fear, zero silver bullets, at campaign disinformation conference
The spread of disinformation online promises to be one of the biggest threats to American democracy during the 2020 election and beyond, if no action is taken. But efforts to defend against these falsehoods remains hamstrung by partisanship.
Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub called disinformation "a fundamental assault on democracy" during a digital disinformation symposium this week at FEC headquarters in Washington.
Weintraub, along with PEN America and the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University, invited politicians, government officials, tech companies, academics and media representatives to the symposium to discuss disinformation and how to combat it. There were no ready answers.
Florida joins debate over where to count prisoners when drawing district lines
Florida would become the seventh state to end so-called prison gerrymandering under legislation one state senator has promised to push hard next year.
The bill by Democrat Randolph Bracy, who represents the Orlando suburbs, would require the mapmakers who draw General Assembly districts to count prisoners as residents at their home addresses, instead of in the mostly rural areas where most of the state's penitentiaries are located. That current approach, Bracy argues, inflates the population of those rural areas at the expense of the big cities where most of the incarcerated come from. The change would likely mean extra seats for the Orlando, Tampa and Miami metropolitan areas.
"I just think it is a matter of fairness. I don't know what the opposition will be," he told Florida Daily.
Report: Few states shine in their transparency of ethics enforcement
Only a handful of states earned high marks in a new report analyzing the enforcement power and transparency of state ethics agencies.
The researchers behind "Enforcement of Ethics Rules by State Agencies"surveyed 2018 enforcement statistics for every state ethics agency and scored states by how well those agencies made their actions publicly available. The study was released last week by the nonprofit Coalition for Integrity, which works to combat corruption in both governments and business.
Disabled voters push against the revival of paper ballots
While electronic voting equipment offers the most accessibility to the disabled, paper ballots are the preferred method in this moment of heightened worries about election security. Reconciling the disconnect before the 2020 election is becoming a top priority of disability advocates.
"Between security and accessibility, one is not more important than the other," Michelle Bishop, a voting rights expert at the National Disability Rights Network told Stateline. "We have to be able to do both if we really want to make democracy work."
Debate
A year of broken standards for America's democracy
"Democratic norms have been broken across all three branches of government, and our system of checks and balances has lost its teeth," says R Street Institute's Aubrey Neal.
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The Dis-United States: Tribalism in American Politics
Join the USC Center for the Political Future on Sept. 27 for a day of exploring the effects of polarization on American society. You'll examine the history of tribalism, its impacts on politics and what role the media should play.