Building Democracy For All is designed so that teachers and students can follow different Learning Pathways as they explore materials in the book. Rather than proceeding sequentially through civics and government curriculum standards, Learning Pathways invite a thematic approach. In addition Elections 2024, 2022, & 2020, other learning pathways include: Student Rights, Influential Women, Black Lives Matter, Media Literacy, and Current Events.

Our Elections Pathway consists of two parts:

1. Part I: United States elections, including sections from the eBook on voting rights, voter suppression, and the larger history of elections in the U.S.
2. Part II: Resources and materials for the upcoming 2024 Presidential campaign and election as well as the 2022 mid-term elections and the 2020 Presidential Election.

Part I: Election Topics in Building Democracy for All 

UNDERSTANDING UNITED STATES ELECTIONS

• Presidential Elections and the Electoral College
• The Party System and the Causes and Consequences of Third Parties
• Town Meetings as a Form of Local Government
• Native American Tribal Governments
• Should the United States Adopt Instant Runoff/Ranked Choice Voting?
• Can a Woman Be Elected President or Vice President of the U.S.?

VOTING RIGHTS AND VOTER SUPPRESSION

• Who Votes and Who Does Not Vote in the United States
  • See "Voting from Ancient Athens to Modern America," a teacher-designed learning plan by Erich Leaper added to eBook Topic 4/Standard 5 on Citizen Participation in the Electoral Process.
• Secret Ballots, Poll Taxes, Literacy Tests and Voter Restriction Laws
• How to Get More People to Vote, Especially Young People to Vote?
  • Includes Voting Reform Proposals including Universal Mail-In Voting

ELECTION-RELATED ISSUES

• Should 16 or 17 Year-Olds Be Allowed to Vote?
• Should Voters Join a Political Party?
• Should Facebook and Other Technology Companies Regulate Political Content on Their Social Media Platforms?
• Should More States Adopt Part-Time Citizen Legislatures?

HISTORY OF U.S. ELECTIONS

• The Seneca Falls Convention and the Declaration of Sentiments
• Alice Paul and the Equal Rights Movement
• Radical Political Parties in United States Politics: Populists, Socialists, and Black Panthers
• 2000 and Other Disputed Elections in United States History
• Electing LGBTQIA Legislators

Part II: Election Resources and Key Insights

The 2022 Mid-Term Election

• Follow the latest analysis from the Cook Political Report.
• Biden is No Sure Thing for 2024. What about Buttigieg? Harris? Even Whitmer?
• MAP: Where Senate Candidates Outperformed Biden and Trump
• Voters Reject Election Deniers in Battleground States: All But One "America First" Candidates Were Defeated
• How Many LGBTQIA Candidates Ran for Election for State and Federal Offices in 2022?
  • 678 including for the first time at least one LBGTQIA candidate on the ballot in every state and the District of Columbia.
  • A Rainbow Wave: More Than 430 candidiates Won according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund.
• Candidates Who Made History in the 2022 Mid-Terms
  • 12 Women Elected State Governors, including:
    • Maura Healey: First Openly Lesbian Elected Governor; First Woman Governor of Massachusetts.
    • Sarah Sanders: First Woman Governor of Arkansas.
    • Wes Moore: First Black Governor of Maryland.
    • Markwayne Mullin: First Native American Senator from Oklahoma.
    • Maxwell Frost: First Generation Z member elected to Congress as a representative from Florida.
    • Becca Balint: First Woman to represent Vermont in Congress.
    • Mary Peltola: First woman to represent Alaska and, as Yup’ik, is the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress. 
• A Red Wave in Florida. A Blue Riptide in Michigan. Where House Candidates Outperformed their District's Partisanship. FiveThirtyEight blog.
• 5 Take Aways from the Mid-Term Elections, The New York Times.
• Fueled by Billionaries, Political Spending Shatters Records Again, The New York Times.
• Georgia's Battle Over the Ballot. Darryl Pinckney. The New York Review.
• What Can We Learn from Predictive Models and Polls. The Journalist's Resource (October 18, 2022)
  • Find out more at Topic 3.4 from Critical Media Literacy and Civic Learning eBook: Political Impacts of Public Opinion Polls
• 60 Percent of Americans Will Have an Election Denier on the Ballot This Fall. FiveThirtyEight. 
• How State Laws Threaten and Weaken Voting Rights in the U.S. The Journalist's Resource (October, 2022)

The 2020 Presidential Election

The 2020 Presidential election was called the most consequential election in modern times. The coronavirus pandemic, partisan divides between people and political parties, Black Lives Matter protests, an economic recession that may lead to a second Great Depression, and looming environmental disasters contributed to uncertainty about the future of American democracy. We designed an Election 2020 choice board featuring a higher-order thinking activities and exploration of the learning pathway chapters (click here to make your own copy of the choice board). 

The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Election and the Challenge of American Democracy by political scientists Lynn Vavreck, Chris Tausanovitch, and John Sides (Princeton University Press, 2022) argues that the attitudes of voters have been become so "calcified" that people for their party or against the other party no matter what the issues or who is running. Here is an interview with the authors.

Explore poliitical parties in Topic 3.5.

Election 2020 Resources 

• Massachusetts Map: See How Your Town or City Voted in the 2020 Election
• Alan J. Lichtman Final Prediction for the 2020 Election
• 2020 LGBTQ Candidate Demographic Report from Out on the Trail (October 2020)
  • • 1006 LGBTQ candidates ran for office in 2020; 574 are on the November ballot
    • California, Florida and Texas have the most LGBTQ candidates
    • For more, link to Electing LGBTQIA Legislators in this eBook
• How to Vote in the 2020 Election: A State-by-State Voting Guide from FiveThiryEight with Voting by Mail rules for each state
• Alexander Keyssar 2020 book, Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? and proposals from Election Reform are discussed in Presidential Elections and the Electoral College.
• Facebook and Twitter claim that Russian Intelligence Services are Targeting the 2020 Presidential Election
  • Visit Russian Hackers, Facebook, the Mueller Report, and the 2016 and 2020 Presidential Elections
• NBA, Players Association Agree to Turn Arenas into Polling Places
  • Read Joint NBA and NBPA Statement
• Dodger Stadium Will Be First MLB Ballpark as a Voting Center
  • This arrangement was negotiated with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the state of California by More Than a Vote, a nonprofit founded by LeBron James. MLB, NBA, NFL stadiums are potentially great voting hubs since they are often located in cities, have parking or public transportation, and offer lots of space for social distancing.
    • Find our more at our eBook module: ENGAGE: How to Get More People, Especially Young People, to Vote
• How to Vote in the 2020 Election: A State-by-State Guide from FiveThirtyEight blog.
  • Includes states from those where:
    • Everyone can vote by mail and ballots are automatically mailed to every voter to states;
    • Everyone can vote by mail and mail-in ballot applications are automatically mailed to voters;
    • Everyone can vote by mail but nothing is automatically mailed to voters;
    • Voting by mail requires a valid excuse (and the pandemic does not count).
• 2020 Election Forecast from FiveThirtyEight (August 12, 2020)
  • • FiveThirtyEight ran 40,000 election simulations. Biden won about 71% of the contests.
    • Interactive Presidential Forecast Map from FiveThirtyEight
      • In mid-October, Biden is winning 87% of the simulated contests