Recommendations for Implementing Jail Voting: Identifying Common Themes
This guide is intended for advocates, organizers, and practitioners working across America to facilitate the voting process for eligible voters in jails.
This guide is intended for advocates, organizers, and practitioners working across America to facilitate the voting process for eligible voters in jails. Presently, about 427,000 individuals held in local jails nationwide have not been convicted of a crime. As such, they are eligible to vote — but they often encounter a range of barriers.
As more and more legal scholars, policymakers, election officials, and advocates look to expand access to voting for jail-based populations, several of them have issued reports with recommendations and best practices. By synthesizing their various insights and proposals, we aim to provide an annotated list of all the recommendations from the reports and identify the most common ones. Organizations, practitioners, and advocates can use this guide as a centralized resource to view current best practices for jail-based voting as identified by their colleagues. While not exhaustive, this document offers a starting point for practitioners eager to engage in this work.
Surveying Sportsmanship as a Framework for Civility
Sports may seem far removed from the challenges facing American democracy, but both rely on a shared commitment to rules, competition, and respect for opponents. As political polarization deepens, some scholars are looking beyond traditional civic institutions and asking whether the values that govern athletics can help strengthen democratic life. New research from the Ronald Reagan Center on Civility and Democracy suggests the answer may be yes.
Terms of Engagement—Mapping Risks to the 2026 Elections
Samantha Tarazi, co-founder and CEO of the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, joins Terms of Engagement co-hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to discuss a new tool that predicts where threats to election integrity are most likely to appear this upcoming voting season.
Navigating Democracy’s Next Chapter at the “Founding Futures” Conference
Ash Center Fellow Jon Alexander joined a diverse group of speakers at TED Democracy Philadelphia to share bold ideas for revitalizing modern democracy.
Tova Wang, director of research projects in democratic practice at the Ash Center, shares her top picks for summer reads focused on making democracy more resilient, responsive, and inclusive.
Allen Lab Fellow Spotlight: City Charters Are Deliberative Democracy’s Friends
Allen Lab Fellow Tyler Fisher examines the untapped potential of city charters as a vehicle for deliberative democracy, arguing that advocates should work to embed tools like citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, and town meetings directly into the governing architecture of cities, institutionalizing deliberative democracy one municipality at a time.
Work in the Age of AI: Reflections from After Neoliberalism
Allen Lab member Charlie Covit reflects on the After Neoliberalism conference and examines the intersection of artificial intelligence and the future of work, arguing that AI forces a democratic reckoning with the meaning of labor itself and that an economy which generates abundance while stripping citizens of purpose and dignity undermines the very foundation of democratic life.
