Voting Amid COVID: The Response of Voters to Voting during the Pandemic

This paper is a tour of mostly public opinion evidence about how COVID affected the experience of voters as they cast ballots in 2020. Topics covered include turnout, reasons for not voting, precautions observed in polling places, and the confidence voters felt about whether the layout of voting locations protected […] Read more »

The survival of U.S. democracy may hinge on this decision by Pa.’s next governor

… Pennsylvania — the closest battleground state with the most electoral votes, where the election was called for Biden last November — is a powerful example of exactly what the Trump scheme to unwind American democracy looks like. In Harrisburg, Republican legislative leaders — after weeks of lobbying and browbeating […] Read more »

Our constitutional crisis is already here

The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The […] Read more »

Sharp decline since July in public opinion of the Supreme Court’s job performance

A Marquette University Law School poll of adults nationwide finds approval of the U.S. Supreme Court fell to 49% in September, down from 60% in July. Disapproval rose to 50% in September, up from 39% in July. A year ago, in September 2020, 66% approved and 33% disapproved of the […] Read more »

The California Recall Was a Warning

Governor Gavin Newsom of California defeated yesterday’s recall election by a large enough margin to squash earlier Republican threats to challenge the results no matter the outcome. But the proliferation of those allegations of voter fraud before the election, including ungrounded claims from former President Donald Trump that the contest […] Read more »

CNN Poll: Most Americans feel democracy is under attack in the US

Most Americans feel democracy is under attack in this country (56%), according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, as 51% say it is likely that elected officials in the US will successfully overturn the results of a future election because their party did not win. Nearly all Americans […] Read more »