Veterans Push Back Against Military Recruitment in Schools

In an effort to minimize disruptions from impassioned poll watchers, one Texas county enhanced transparency by offering tours of the elections office, installing large TV screens to broadcast the tabulation process, publicly posting often-requested information online, and hosting workshops to walk residents through every step of election procedures. The county has been praised for its approach and the 2022 midterm election went off without any outbursts from voting activists.

The Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability's "deliberative town halls" pair willing lawmakers with a random, representative sample of constituents so voters can share feedback and ask questions without being drowned out by the loudest voices in political spaces. All participants are given the same background materials created by a nonpartisan source to inform their discussion, which means there's no squabbling over establishing basic facts, and politicians must adapt to the natural flow of conversation rather than relying on canned talking points.

The Community Action-Led project, facilitated by Youth Awareness For Peace And Development, trains community members in civic engagement and grassroots governance to encourage them to become more active in local matters. The initiative has educated at least 2,000 people in Jigawa State.

New York City's Civic Engagement Commission has run two pilot projects implementing participatory budgeting, a process in which local residents help decide how local funding should be allocated. The latest pilot project allocated $1.3 million to 33 projects in "priority" neighborhoods, including youth sports programs and culturally-based mental health workshops.

After two years of planning around how to respond to conspiracy theories and misinformation during the 2022 midterm election, officials in Maricopa County quickly sprung into action to communicate with the public about a printing error that caused some ballots to be rejected by voting machines. Social media analysis found that claims of fraud related to the machine malfunction gained far less traction than conspiracy theories about fraud in Maricopa County during the 2020 election.

In its efforts to oust authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s Tisza Party established “Tisza Islands” across the country to recruit and engage volunteers, with more than 20,000 members as of January 2025. Through these outposts, the party was able to staff its campaign stalls with volunteers, distribute an independent newspaper highlighting information not reported in pro-Orbán media, and deploy election monitors to polling stations on election day. Tisza’s candidate, Péter Magyar, defeated Orbán with more than 53 percent of the vote.

GARViS, Georgia’s new system for documenting voter records, stores information on roughly 7 million active voters and hundreds of thousands of inactive voters, including their addresses, assigned polling places, sample ballots, and early voting schedules. The George Secretary of State’s Office reports that the new system has helped cut down check-in time on election day from about a minute and a half per voter to about 47 seconds per voter, streamlining the process for both poll workers and residents.

After Michiganders approved a constitutional amendment allowing residents to vote early in federal and statewide elections, municipal clerks reported that the state’s first test of early voting in November 2023 was a success with nearly 4,600 people casting ballots.

Residents who participated in Michigan’s first year of early in-person voting say they appreciated the shorter lines, the convenience to vote on their own schedules, and the ability to feed their ballots into polling place tabulators themselves. Nearly 4,600 voters cast their ballots early in-person across the state.

Feedback machines installed at government offices such as hospitals and police stations allow Ugandan citizens to offer anonymous thoughts on the quality of the services provided, creating data that is analyzed to highlight areas for improvement. More than 50 machines have been deployed throughout the country with nearly 260,000 people sharing feedback each month in Kampala alone.