Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Teams enlisted to turn their arenas into major league polling places

Arena voting, Kentucky,

Kentucky hailed as a success its decision to use some large facilities as voting super centers for the June primary, including the convention center in Louisville.

Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

More than a dozen professional teams are interested in allowing their arenas to be voting centers this fall — adding to the growing list of ways civic engagement has taken new forms during the pandemic.

The stadiums, which can hold tens of thousands of fans, have sat mostly empty since the Covid-19 outbreak brought pro sports to a halt five months ago. In November, though, they could provide enough room for poll workers to space out a large number of ballot stations and socially distance voters while reducing wait times.

The initiative comes as election officials across the country try to make in-person voting safe and mail-in voting accessible while President Trump continues to cast doubt on the security of what could be a majority vote-by-mail election.


Dubbed the Election Super Centers Project, the multi-league effort was announced last week by the National Vote at Home Institute, which normally promotes casting ballots through the mail, and the Silver Linings Group, a group of public policy experts formed this spring to mull solutions for problems the pandemic has brought to light.

But the teams, which include the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers and NBA's Milwaukee Bucks in the swing states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are still ironing out the details with the local authorities as they discuss plans to open for early voting and registration.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Other teams already on board are baseball's Boston Red Sox; the NHL's Washington Capitals and New Jersey Devils (who play in Newark); and the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers, Indiana Pacers (Indianapolis), Golden State Warriors (San Francisco) and Washington Wizards (who share the Capital One Arena and an owner with the Capitals).

The effort hopes to expand to include up to 25 teams and arenas, and discussions are starting with some colleges regarding use of their venues.

Inspired by an effort in Kentucky's June primary — when polling centers in Louisville's convention center and a sports venue in Lexington helped poll workers space out voting booths and reduce wait times — the organizers of the effort say that turning arenas into voting "super centers" could increase in-person turnout this fall by more than 1 milllion.

"The cornerstone of being an American is the sanctity of your vote," said Eugene Jarecki, the filmmaker and author who helped found the Silver Linings Project. "When you have a physical emergency like a flood or a fire, very often you see buildings like the Superdome used. The same is true here. We have a democratic emergency under the threat of the virus."

Jarecki said last month's announcement from basketball superstar LeBron James's More Than a Vote that the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks would open their NBA arenas as polling places also proved the idea's viability.

While Jarecki said the group strongly supports voting by mail, the project wants to give voters all options.

To meet the goal of adding 25 teams, the project has convened experts and influencers like Jared Dearing, the election official who organized Kentucky's use of super centers, and recording artist John Legend and NBA coach Doc Rivers, both of whom have been outspoken advocates of expanding voting.

"I can't imagine a more important thing at this very moment for Americans," Jarecki said.

Read More

Presidential promises, promises, promises....

Former President Donald J. Trump answers question from Pastor Paula White-Cain at the National Faith Advisory Board summit in Powder Springs, Georgia, United States on October 28, 2024.

(Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Presidential promises, promises, promises....

When Donald Trump made his first successful run for president in 2016, he made 663 promises to American voters. By the end of his 2021 term of office, he could only fulfill approximately 23 percent of his vows. Before we get too excited as to what will happen when Trump 2.0 takes effect on Jan. 20, let’s take a moment to reflect on covenants made by a couple of other presidents.

PolitiFact tracks the promises our presidents have made. PolitiFact is a non-partisan fact-checking website created in 2007 by the Florida-based Tampa Bay Times and acquired in 2018 by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit school for journalists. Here’s a report card on three presidents:

Keep ReadingShow less
A bold next step for the Democratic Party

DEMOCRATIC PARTY FLAG

Getty Images//Stock Photo

A bold next step for the Democratic Party

In order to think about the next steps for the Democratic Party and the February 1, 2025, vote for a new Democratic National Committee Chair, it is useful to remember the context of three pairs of Democratic Presidents since the 1960s.

JFK and LBJ led the way for major progressive changes, ranging from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to Affirmative Action and the War on Poverty. Johnson's Great Society was the most progressive agenda ever promoted by an American president.

Keep ReadingShow less
The 119th Congress: Some history makers, but fewer women overall

Vice President Kamala Harris presides over the electoral college vote count during a joint session of Congress in the House chamber on Monday, January 6, 2025.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The 119th Congress: Some history makers, but fewer women overall

When the 119th U.S. Congress was sworn in, some newly elected women members made history.

Emily Randall, from Washington’s 6th Congressional District, is the first out LGBTQ+ Latina. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks are the first Black senators to represent Delaware and Maryland, respectively — and the first two Black women to ever serve concurrently in the upper chamber. Sarah McBride, from Delaware’s at-large House district, is the first transgender member of Congress. All are Democrats.

Keep ReadingShow less
What can we learn in 2025 from the 100-year-old Scopes Trial?

Two groups of protesters, one blue and one red, marching with placards across an abstract American flag background.

Getty Images//Stock Photo

What can we learn in 2025 from the 100-year-old Scopes Trial?

Based on popular demand, the American Schism series will renew in 2025 with a look at science-based public policy caught in the crossfires of today’s culture wars.

Readers often send me comments on how this series effectively sheds light on our contemporary political divisions through careful examination and analysis of our own American history, since so many of our present issues are derivative of conflicts long brewing in our past. As I wrote last year on these pages, history can act as a salve for our present-day wounds if we apply it.

Keep ReadingShow less