Media

Senior Fellow Algernon Austin and Jared Bernstein discuss how the "bad culture" arguments about African-Americans are misguided at best and destructive at worst. By creating an erroneous causal link between "bad culture" and black poverty, the "Cosby consensus" prevents the country from recognizing success and building on it to create the economic opportunities that are missing for too many African-Americans.

Among the new voting requirements recently contested in courts are state-issued photo IDs and tight restrictions on voting registration drives. Proponents of such requirements tend to be conservative white Republicans who argue that tighter rules are essential for preventing voter fraud. However, critics say such laws will unfairly impact the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and college-age students, all of whom tend to vote more for the Democrats.

New York, NY — In communities across the country, voters could be subject to intimidation and a variety of suppressive tactics meant to keep them from casting a ballot. Demos, a national, non-partisan public policy center, published the details of these potential challenges to voting rights in a new briefing paper this week.

A public policy group is warning that voters - especially among minorities - may face attempts at intimidation and suppression in an effort to sway the election.

A study released Friday by the National Voting Rights Institute and Demos points to several incidents during the 2004 election and warns that voters nationwide may face similar problems on Tuesday.

"We think it's a serious problem," said Brenda Wright, managing attorney at the National Voting Rights Institute, who co-authored the report.

New York, NY — Across the nation, states are failing to meet a Federal mandate to boost voter registration among low-income Americans by offering registration opportunities in public assistance offices — a requirement established by Congress under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Demos, a national, non-partisan public policy center, published the findings in a new briefing paper this week.

Voting rights groups are concerned that millions of US citizens with limited English proficiency could have problems when trying to vote this year.

Voters with disabilities warn that despite anti-discrimination laws, many still face barriers when they try to go to the polls.

The language contained in some credit card agreements is written at a 27th-grade level, according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. And many cardholder agreements today contain language requiring a minimum of a 15th-grade education, the equivalent of three years of college.

Yet with only about half of U.S. adults reading above an eighth-grade level, the report said, credit card disclosures may be meaningless to millions of Americans.

New York, NY — Across the United States, a long-term under-investment in the people who make the mechanics of our elections function properly, and ensure that voters have proper access to ballots and functioning machines, is expected to be a key problem on Election Day, according to a new briefing paper by Demos, a national, non-partisan public policy and research center.