Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Voting rights bills are personal. What is happening in your state?

Lousiana House chamber

More than 1,000 bills related to voting rights have been introduced in state legislatures this year.

John Elk/Getty Images

Gifford is the founder and chief operating officer of ActiVote, which works to increase voter participation and civic engagement. ActiVote is partnering with the National Vote at Home Institute on a week-long event to highlight bills that affect voting in your state.


Voting rights bills are in the spotlight. Last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law, live on Fox & Friends, joining Georgia, Arkansas, Iowa and Utah in a post-2020 frenzy to change rules and procedures surrounding voting.

More than 1,000 bills have been introduced in state legislatures around the country this year, touching all aspects of the way we cast votes. Some are restricting voting rights; others are expanding them. Some voters may have heard about the bills that get national attention, such as the controversial new law in Georgia, but most have little idea what is happening in their own state legislature.

Helping voters cut through the noise and know exactly what is happening in their state and in Congress is the core mission of ActiVote. Our nonpartisan app ensures that every voter can see all bills that affect them personally, see the candidates that they can vote for, and see where their candidates and legislators stand on the political spectrum.

This week ActiVote is teaming up with National Vote at Home Institute to spotlight all aspects of mail voting. The institute has catalogued and summarized all voting bills and offers the advice that we should be "alert not anxious." In the event, we feature educational summaries from NVHI explaining voting by mail, including signature verification, ballot drop boxes, risk-limiting audits, preprocessing of ballots, ballot tracking and curing, permanent absentee voter lists, prepaid postage and voter data integrity. Everyone can weigh in on where they stand on each of these topics by answering the survey.

Previous studies have shown that voting at home is not a partisan issue: Many people across the political spectrum prefer to have the time to sit down to study their ballot and the candidates for all the various races when they make their choices. At the same time, people want to make sure that their ballot arrives on time, is counted and, of course, that our elections are safe and secure. Many are uncertain about how to ensure that convenience for the voter and security of our elections can go hand in hand.

We believe that this week's event is an excellent opportunity for everyone supportive of convenient and secure elections to learn more about everything related to voting at home, see which bills are going through their state's legislature and to let their voices be heard in the event surveys.

Share your opinion on the various components of the bills in ActiVote surveys.

Read More

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

The B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber flys over the 136th Rose Parade Presented By Honda on Jan. 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

After a short and successful war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush claimed in 1991 that “the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.” Bush was referring to what was commonly called the “Vietnam syndrome.” The idea was that the Vietnam War had so scarred the American psyche that we forever lost confidence in American power.

The elder President Bush was partially right. The first Iraq war was certainly popular. And his successor, President Clinton, used American power — in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere — with the general approval of the media and the public.

Keep ReadingShow less
Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are
a close up of a typewriter with the word conspiracy on it

Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are

The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case. Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. Still, to a more dangerous reality: the conspiracies taking hold and being amplified by political ideologues are increasingly correlated with violence against particular groups. Fortunately, promising new research points to actions we can take to reduce conspiratorial thinking in communities across the US.

Some journalists claim that this is “a golden age of conspiracy theories,” and the public agrees. As of 2022, 59% of Americans think that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories today than 25 years ago, and 73% of Americans think conspiracy theories are “out of control.” Most blame this perceived increase on the role of social media and the internet.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why a College Degree No Longer Guarantees a Good Job
woman wearing academic cap and dress selective focus photography
Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash

Why a College Degree No Longer Guarantees a Good Job

A college education used to be considered, along with homeownership, one of the key pillars of the American Dream. Is that still the case? Recent experiences of college graduates seeking employment raise questions about whether a university diploma remains the best pathway to pursuing happiness, as it once was.

Consider the case of recent grad Lohanny Santo, whose TikTok video went viral with over 3.6 million “likes” as she broke down in tears and vented her frustration over her inability to find even a minimum wage job. That was despite her dual degrees from Pace University and her ability to speak three languages. John York, a 24-year-old with a master’s degree in math from New York University, writes that “it feels like I am screaming into the void with each application I am filling out.”

Keep ReadingShow less