What's needed to bring the US voting system into the 21st century

This report published in 2014 by the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) provides an in-depth look at election administration in the United States and provides concrete best practices that election officials should adopt to support today's voters. Among other things, the PCEA report argues that, "The last decade's heightened demand for more professional administration of elections and modernization of the process demonstrates that there is an increasing need for technology acumen, public relations skills, and data savvy among election officials."

This short piece by Dana Chisnell, co-director at Center for Civic Design (CCD), summarizes what CCD's research with voters reveals about the challenges people encounter throughout the voting process in the US. Chisnell argues that the common understanding of "voter apathy" gets it wrong. Instead, "CCD's research shows that the people who don’t care are very few. Deep down, almost everyone does care about voting, and they feel shame for not doing it. The real problem is that voting in America is just hard."

This post by product manager Anthea Watson Strong outlines a framework for interrogating whether people will (or won't) interact with digital tools designed to promote civic engagement. Watson Strong reminds us that "users are rational actors … who still have dinner to make." And she argues that technologists need to invest more effort in thinking about the ways tools can reduce the "cost" of civic action and increase the probability that a civic action will impact an outcome.