New Report Sets ‘Gold Standard’ for Election Audits
Reading Time: 3 minutes Election integrity experts have laid out a blueprint for states to implement risk-limiting audits after conducting three successful pilot tests in Rhode Island.
Black Votes Matter — Especially in Florida
Reading Time: 11 minutes How to prevent over half a million nonviolent ex-felons, most of whom are black, from voting? Let us count the ways.
Will Microsoft Save America’s Elections?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Tech giant Microsoft has thrown its hat into the election transparency field with a program called ElectionGuard, which aims to put verification power in the hands of voters in the United States.
Will ‘None of the Above’ Win the Presidential Election (Again)?
Reading Time: 3 minutes While turnout was up for last year’s midterms, the 2020 presidential election may be decided not by which candidate people vote for — but rather by who shows up to cast a ballot.
New ‘Hybrid’ Voting System Can Change Paper Ballot After It’s Been Cast
Reading Time: 9 minutes Manual audits of machine-marked “paper ballots” from hybrid voting systems cannot detect fraud because the hybrids can change votes after the ballots have been cast.
Philly Ignores Cybersecurity and Disability Access in Voting System Selection
Reading Time: 7 minutes Philadelphia is poised to choose a vulnerable barcode voting system after a “Blue Ribbon Commission” hid its criticism of such systems in the endnotes of its election-security report. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania auditor general has opened a probe into Philadelphia’s selection process, which appears designed to favor one vendor.
Is Another State Ready to Reject Disenfranchisement?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Iowa may be next in line to restore former felons’ voting rights.
Georgia Voters on Our Minds
Reading Time: 2 minutes For Georgians it may seem like there’s no great option for voting. But apathy and not voting only plays into the suppressors’ hands. Though things may look bad, citizen awareness is rising, and we hope that you’ll participate in this fragile enterprise we call democracy.
Will the Real Voter Fraud Criminals Please Stand Up
Reading Time: 3 minutes If you as an individual unwittingly vote illegally, prepare to face harsh consequences. But if you’re a government official and you illegally nullify millions of votes, simply rinse and repeat. Because justice apparently is… blind.
Running Towards Reform: Asheville 5k Follows Partisan Line to Oppose Gerrymandering
Reading Time: 2 minutes One year ahead of the next major election in North Carolina, the city of Asheville is hosting a unique race to highlight how state Republicans have redrawn district lines in their favor.The Gerrymander 5K “walk/run” is no race for the faint of heart — or the weak-ankled. That’s because its route traces the outlandish district Read More
Could Google Search Destroy Free and Fair Elections?
Reading Time: 1 minute America’s next President might be put in office by Google. Either by the natural “trending” of the Google search algorithm — or by the invisible hand of a Google executive, manipulating the Search Engine. A new scientific study, by RadioWhoWhatWhy podcast guest Robert Epstein, clearly shows that the rankings in Google search results directly affect our voting behavior.
Republicans Dominate States with Poor Democratic Health, Study Finds
Reading Time: 2 minutes A new study shows that there is a wide gap between states when it comes to providing access to the ballot box for their citizens. States won by President Barack Obama generally performed much better with regard to ballot box access while those won by Mitt Romney in the last presidential election did very poorly.
The Undemocratic Primary
Reading Time: 5 minutes While the Republican field of White House hopefuls is historically deep and diverse, the GOP’s process of picking its nominee is highly undemocratic. Open primaries were supposed to bring transparency to party nominations once dominated by backroom deals. But party-sanctioned debate rules and the influence of conservative billionaires are stacking the deck in favor of the frontrunners.
RadioWhoWhatWhy: Think You Know the First Amendment? Think Again.
Reading Time: 1 minute We take a random walk through what the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights are really all about with Burt Neuborne. Neuborne is the former national legal director of the ACLU and the founder of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU Law School.
An Open Letter to Our Readers: The Case for Democracy
Reading Time: 4 minutes Despite the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Voter Registration Act of 1993, there are still issues with voter registration. This, and a seemingly complacent electorate, mean that American elections are left up to a powerful (and wealthy) few. Here’s your chance to make a difference.