In the Press

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State Newsroom Logo

To boost Trump, GOP attorneys general charge into battle over state election rules (opens a new window)

  • March 18, 2024
  • News from the States

By itself, making the materiality provision harder to use would likely have only a limited impact, since it hasn’t been among the tools most commonly used to protect voting rights, noted Cameron Kistler, counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan democracy advocacy group.

But, he said, it comes in the context of other ongoing conservative legal attacks on voting protections — including attempts to weaken the Voting Rights Act, and suggestions by the Supreme Court that it may lower the level of scrutiny it applies to voting laws that are accused of harming voters.

Election deniers make up one-third of the Pennsylvania legislature, new report shows (opens a new window)

  • March 13, 2024
  • The Keystone

“We not only have the most amount of legislators who are election deniers in the General Assembly, we have congressmen who conspired with President Trump to overturn the election … I think we have the most January six participants who have been tried and convicted,” Kyle Miller, the Pennsylvania Policy Strategist for Protect Democracy, said in an interview. “So yeah, unfortunately we were the Keystone state in more ways than one in 2020.”

Union of Concerned Scientists logo.

US Elections Aren’t as Free and Fair as They Should Be. Here’s How Science Can Help (opens a new window)

  • March 11, 2024
  • Union of Concerned Scientists

If those rankings weren’t enough, a survey of roughly 1,000 democracy experts and scholars conducted by Protect Democracy, found that the US democracy is under significant threat. An index of several variables, this group’s “Threat Index” offers mean scores for countries to try to calculate the threat they face from authoritarianism. The index found the United States and our elections are under “significant threat” of authoritarianism as of February 2024 whereas, by comparison, this threat was classified as low for the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada.

Common Dreams logo

Critics Warn Orbán Visit Aimed at Tutoring Trump on ‘How to Destroy a Democracy’ (opens a new window)

  • March 7, 2024
  • Common Dreams

In the case of the U.S., Protect Democracy editor Amanda Carpenter warned this week that “Orbán is the textbook example of why autocrats are often much more dangerous the second time in office.”

“They learn from their mistakes, shortcomings, and—above all—the things that caused them to lose power previously. Orbán is well on his way to staying in office for the rest of his life,” Carpenter added. “On that too Trump aims to do the same.”
Vox Logo

Why US elections only give you two choices (opens a new window)

  • March 6, 2024
  • Vox

America’s two-party system is widely hated. Very few Americans think the two major parties do an adequate job representing them, and most say more parties are needed. But when it comes time to vote, very few people vote for third-party candidates. Often, this is explained as either a failure of will (the country would have third parties if more people would just vote for them) or as a conspiracy (the political and media establishments suppress third-party candidates and ideas).

In Defeat, Haley Voters Have Power to Build On (opens a new window)

  • March 6, 2024
  • Time

In this opinion piece, Amanda Carpenter and Beau Tremitiere argue that Nikki Haley’s supporters could keep Trump “from returning to the White House in 2025. And if they embrace the ‘fusion’ strategy suggested by Senators Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin, they could move us past the dangerous two-party politics that has pushed our democracy to the brink.”