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The women who lead democracy reform

Sara Bonk, Jackie Salit, Justine Williams

While women remain significantly underrepresented in government, there is at least one adjacent field in which they have achieved gender parity in leadership: the universe of democracy reform and bridge-building organizations.

In its 2021 Diversity Report, the Bridge Alliance found that half of the executives leading its 100 member organizations are women. (Disclosure: The Fulcrum is a program within the Bridge Alliance, which brings together organizations working toward a healthy democracy.)


To mark Women’s History Month, The Fulcrum is spotlighting just some of the women leading these organizations.

Wendy Willis

Executive Director, Kitchen Table Democracy

"Like so many of my friends in this feature, I chose this work because I believe in the promise of democracy. I believe that democracy has an ember at the heart of it that can ignite more justice, more solidarity, more joy. All we have to do is blow on it."

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Photo from the movie "Conclave"

"Conclave," Ralph Fiennes' new movie about a papal election, offers valuable insight into our own election.

Focus Features

Certainty is the enemy of unity and tolerance

Schmidt is a columnist and editorial board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Certitude in viewing the other side as malevolent might just break the country apart, but putting faith in one another and our institutions might be the glue that can keep us together.

Just days before Election Day, I chose to go see a movie in a theater as a way to break away from the horse race politics and hyperpolarized rhetoric. Little did I know the movie would provide me with valuable insight into the very thing I was trying to escape.

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Elephant and donkey playing tug-of-war over a cliff
John M Lund Photography Inc/Getty Images

Whatever happens Nov. 5, democracy will remain in deep trouble

Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.

Sunday brought more bad news for and about American democracy. In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, only 49 percent of respondents said American democracy does a good job representing ordinary people. Hardly a ringing endorsement of our form of government.

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Electoral College map

It's possible Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could each get 269 electoral votes this year.

Electoral College rules are a problem. A worst-case tie may be ahead.

Johnson is the executive director of the Election Reformers Network, a national nonpartisan organization advancing common-sense reforms to protect elections from polarization. Keyssar is a Matthew W. Stirling Jr. professor of history and social policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. His work focuses on voting rights, electoral and political institutions, and the evolution of democracies.

It’s the worst-case presidential election scenario — a 269–269 tie in the Electoral College. In our hyper-competitive political era, such a scenario, though still unlikely, is becoming increasingly plausible, and we need to grapple with its implications.

Recent swing-state polling suggests a slight advantage for Kamala Harris in the Rust Belt, while Donald Trump leads in the Sun Belt. If the final results mirror these trends, Harris wins with 270 electoral votes. But should Trump take the single elector from Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district — won by Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2016 — then both candidates would be deadlocked at 269.

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