Menu
Image of a hand lowering a voter registration sheet into an orange box with stacks of voter registration papers on both sides

Threats to Ballot Access: New Report Examines Risks of Wrongful Voter Removals Across the Country

Dēmos examines ballot access issues, voter suppression in AZ, GA, OH, CA, IN, WI, MI, NC, TX, LA 

Press release/statement
August 10, 2023

We are changing the conversation around our democracy and economy by telling influential new stories about our country and its people. Get our latest blog and media updates here. For more in-depth explorations and analyses, visit our Resources page.

Featured
Ground level view of the Wall Street Stock Exchange

Unfinished Business: Revisiting Dodd-Frank and the Path to Economic Progress

On the anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act, we reflect on recent banking failures and the inequities inherent in our current financial system. 

Blog
Daniella Zessoules
Black mother and daughter looking at the city river

A Supreme Court Power Grab: Attacking Federal Agencies to Advance an Extremist Agenda

Why the Court's decision to limit the EPA's power to regulate water access is yet another case of eroding the power of the other branches of government at the expense of Black and brown people.

Blog
Ashley Tjhung
supreme court

Supreme Court's Rejection of Affirmative Action Widens the Divide: Dēmos Calls for Renewed Efforts to Combat Systemic Racism

“The 14th Amendment is supposed to be a shield against racism, and now it’s being used as a sword.” 

Press release/statement
Taifa Smith Butler

Trump Says Jobs Can Close Racial Divides. Here's Why That's Unlikely

And all this inequality in wages, both now and stretching far back into the past, helps create one of the most gaping racial divides of all: the wealth divide. The median wealth for a white two-parent household with children was $161,300 as of 2013 — 8.5 times as big as that of the median Hispanic
In the media
Danielle Kurtzleben

The affirmative action ‘we don’t talk about’ — 30% of Harvard freshmen are legacies: survey

Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank, described the propensity of elite institutions to admit wealthy students or those with a familial connection as “the affirmative action we just don’t talk about.”
In the media
Jillian Berman

Colleges get more students to attend from this — than cutting tuition

“If we care about getting more people to and through college, we can’t do it on the cheap,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. “We’re not going to get the outcomes we want, unless we put in the public investment necessary to do so.” [...]
In the media
Jillian Berman

How Trump both stokes and obscures his supporters’ racial resentment

“The dog whistle metaphor suggests that the dogs — the intended audience — hear the message clearly. That’s wrong. The code is designed to hide the actual dynamics from the target audience itself,” Ian Haney-López, author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and
In the media
German Lopez

Demos Applauds Illinois for Signing Automatic Voter Registration Bill into Law

Illinois becomes 10 th State to enact Automatic Voter Registration New York – Demos applauds Governor Rauner and the Illinois Legislature on approving Senate Bill 1933, automatic voter registration (AVR) legislation. After a veto last year, the Illinois legislature unanimously approved SB 1933
Press release/statement

Years After Katrina, the Black Poor Remains at High Risk

How the Black, the poor, and the elderly suffered the most from Katrina, and how that remains relevant still today.
Blog
Algernon Austin

It’s time to stop the growing fear of ICE in American schools

While families across the country are sending their children back to school, immigrant families are under particular stress thanks to President Trump, who just pardoned Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff who openly racially profiled Latinos in “immigration patrols.”
In the media
Katherine Culliton-González

Illinois becomes 10th state to automatically register voters, a Democratic Party goal

[A] study by Demos, a progressive think tank which supports AVR, found that the population of voters who came onto the rolls automatically was less white than the population registered under the opt-in system.
In the media
David Weigel

Oregon's AVR Increased Diversity in 2016 Electoral Participation Across All Age Groups

In our recent research exploring the impacts of Oregon’s new Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) system in the 2016 election, we find that new voters who registered using AVR were more diverse than non-AVR voters. We also find that the individuals who were registered with AVR (including both
Blog
Sean McElwee

Vote Fraud Crusader J. Christian Adams Sparks Outrage

Voting rights advocates fear that counties carrying out aggressive purges under legal duress will push officials to purge eligible voters. "In a lot of these settlements, the push to remove people from the rolls may result in a lot of mistakes," Cameron Bell, an attorney for the liberal think tank
In the media
Jane C. Timm