Voting

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• SOURCE: Harvard Kennedy School
  9/15/2020
  

  If the Electoral College is a Racist Relic, Why has it Endured? (podcast)

  Harvard professor Alex Keyssar's book examines the persistence of the electoral college against rising calls for its abolition, and the influence of racism on the institution. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/8/2020
  

  The Electoral College Will Destroy America

  by Jesse Wegman

  The real problem with the Electoral College isn't that it inflates the power of small states. It erases the votes of tens of millions through state winner-take-all election rules. 

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• SOURCE: WAMU
  8/18/2020
  

  100 Years Later: The Complicated History Of The Women’s Suffrage Movement (Audio)

  Historians Adele Logan Alexander and Lisa Tetrault discuss the complicated history of women's suffrage including racial divisions in the movement. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/13/2020
  

  Black Women in Politics are No Longer a ‘First.’ They are a Force

  by Martha S. Jones

  Kamala Harris is not merely a barrier-breaker on the ballot; she’s part of a generation of Black women leaders who are changing politics — and our collective future.

• 
• SOURCE: USA Today
  8/4/2020
  

  When Politics Hits Home: Pandemic Moms are Descendants of Soccer and Votes-for-Women Moms

  by Laura Kumin

  Over 100 years ago, legions of women found ways to convey to non-activist women that the vote was crucial to them and the well-being of their families.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  8/4/2020
  

  Don’t Believe the Lie That Voting Is All You Can Do

  by Daniel Hunter

  Stop minimizing the work of movements.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  7/7/2020
  

  It Takes a Long Time to Vote

  by Jonathan Coopersmith

  No federal law governs wait times. Nearly two-thirds of voters in 2012 and three-quarters in 2018 waited less than 10 minutes. But long wait times are a chronic problem primarily for Latino and Black voters in “precincts with high minority populations, high population, and low incomes.”

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/18/2020
  

  Take Some Deep Breaths and Prepare to Wait for Election Results

  by Ellen L. Weintraub and Kevin M. Kruse

  Americans and the American news media must face the fact that the safety of voters requires us to slow down on reporting election results as more voters will cast ballots by mail. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  5/4/2020
  

  How Martin Luther King Jr.'s Groundless Traffic Ticket Changed History's Course

  by Michael Warren

  The incident, that took place on this day 60 years ago, proved to be the catalyst for electoral change.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/15/2020
  

  Despite the Risks, Letting Americans Vote by Mail in November is Good for Democracy

  by Jonathan W. White

  Today’s debate about broadening access to absentee ballots amid a pandemic should be less controversial than the Civil War era struggle over creating an entirely new system.  

• 
• SOURCE: History.com
  4/13/2020
  

  How Americans Have Voted Through History: From Voices to Screens

  From shouting candidates' names, to hanging chads to electronic scanning, the nature of voting has a long, sometimes bumpy history in the United States.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Review of Books
  4/13/2020
  

  What People Power Looks Like in a Pandemic Democracy

  by Corey Robin

  How will democracy function under quarantine? History may have the answer.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/6/2020
  

  A Lesson on Voting Rights—And Suppression—During a Pandemic that Students Won’t Learn in Textbooks

  Here is a lesson for students and everybody else on the history of voter suppression in this country.

• 
• 2/25/20
  

  Abolishing the Electoral College Requires the Unanimous Consent of Every State in the Union

  by Robert Hardaway

  The Founders were right: the Electoral College ensures small states and minority groups matter in our democracy. 

• 
• 11/10/19
  

  The Electoral College: How the Founders Cheated You of Your Vote

  by Harlow Giles Unger

  Weeks of debate by America’s Founders failed to set any rules at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia—a failure that led to “cheating” at the Electoral College ever since.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/10/19
  

  Why Southern white women vote against feminism

  by Angie Maxwell

  The often overlooked question that explains why discussion of a gender gap leads us astray.  

• 
• 8/27/19
  

  A Voting History of American Jews From 1916 to Today

  by Ronald L. Feinman

  Historically, Democratic presidential candidates have received a majority of the Jewish vote.

• 
• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  1/3/19
  

  The 200-Year History of Using Voter Fraud Fears to Block Access to the Ballot

  by Pema Levy

  It didn't start with Donald Trump.

• 
• SOURCE: Historic Newspapers (Special to HNN)
  12/10/2018
  

  What this graph shows about women's suffrage

  And why it's so shocking. 

• 
• SOURCE: NY Review of Books
  9-10-18
  

  Resistance Means More Than Voting

  by Garry Wills

  Obama is wrong to suggest that voting and only voting is the way to express one’s opposition to a tyrant like Trump.