States must now take swift action to design racially equitable voting systems—including dramatically scaling up vote by mail, while also maintaining accessible in-person voting—so communities are not disenfranchised this fall.
To help make that vision real, we should consider not just bold legislative change, but also finally remaking our Constitution to make real the aspiration for an inclusive democracy.
Florida’s online voter registration (OVR) system did not function properly on the day and night of the voter registration deadline. The State has extended the deadline, but not long enough for voters to complete their registrations.
If we are to survive this crisis—and imagine a more equitable, dynamic economy to come, we must start with a recommitment to the value of universal, inclusive public infrastructure.
From March through May, New Florida Majority Education Fund surveyed over 21,000 Floridians to ask how the pandemic was affecting their lives and well-being. This report presents our findings from those surveys.
Efforts to change the long-standing practice of counting every individual in the country for the purposes of drawing legislative districts would reduce the political power of—and the resources provided to—Black and brown people.
Potentially thousands of voters were deprived of their right to vote because Florida was “unable to run a functional voter registration website” during the crucial final hours leading up to the registration deadline.
American democracy wasn't functioning well for many Americans before this election. Sure, it's working well as it was designed by our all-white, all-male founding fathers — to protect white political power — but it's still failing Black and brown people.
“They collect our data without our permission. They profit from our data. They fail to invest in processes to verify accuracy. And their models are not transparent. This puts Black and Brown consumers at a serious disadvantage.”
The Biden administration should implement its public credit registry proposal to shift power away from an oligopoly that exercises inordinate control over consumers’ financial prospects and towards a fairer system that better respects consumers and reduces racial inequality.
"Black and Latinx borrowers [are] more likely to be denied credit than white borrowers and more likely to be charged higher interest rates [...]. [O]ne of many ways the financial deck is stacked against Black and brown consumers.”
Big companies are using data to preserve the power imbalance that keeps them rich. This economic model is rooted in chattel slavery and relies on the extraction and commodification of data.
In collaboration with grassroots and faith-based partners working in communities of color, Demos is challenging Florida’s racially discriminatory attack on voting rights in the wake of unprecedented turnout by voters of color in the 2020 presidential election.
Until voters and elected leaders in Baltimore, Maryland took action to bring small donor public financing to their elections, big money in politics was a growing problem in the city.
Although the path forward is still uncertain, one thing is clear: There is momentum around voting rights, and Americans across the country are ready for our elected officials to do everything they can to make it easier — not harder — to vote.