on a completely unrelated note, wear your bike helmets
<[link removed]>
Hi Friend,

 

The elections start coming and they don’t stop coming, do they?


Amidst an unprecedented groundswell of global protests demanding racial
justice, this week certain parts of the country turned their attention back to
the ballot box, with primaries in South Carolina, Georgia, South Dakota,
Nevada, and West Virginia allowing Americans to channel their voice into their
vote.


The results? 


Well, here are three things to think about this week:

... Let's talk about Georgia
<[link removed]>

Georgia was one state where voters headed to the polls Tuesday, only to face
four, five, even six-hour long poll lines. With new machines and a shortage of
poll workers, Georgia citizens were forced to wait in meandering lines just to
get their voices heard. 


This week, Unite America’s Emily Baller breaks down what exactly broke down
<[link removed]> in Georgia’s
primary election, from their dependency on older poll workers (who were more
likely to stay away due to the increased risk from COVID-19) to a shortage of
machines, with volunteers not properly trained to use them. 


Ultimately, the issues in Georgia boil down to what we’ve long been saying:
safe, secure elections depend on preparation and easily traced paper ballots.
If other states want to avoid Georgia’s fate, the time to act isnow
<[link removed]>.



<[link removed]>

<[link removed]>
Change the rules, change the incentives
<[link removed]>

If 2020 seems like history repeating itself (an impeachment, a pandemic, a
stock market crash, and a civil rights movement), it’s probably because history
is repeating itself. 2020 has shown exactly how our system will create the same
cycles over and over again. The reason? Our system is broken. 


This week, Unite America board member Katherine Gehl and her co-author Michael
Porter write in Salon about how we can change the system by changing the rules
of the game. Right now, there is virtually no overlap for elected officials
between acting in the public’s best interest and winning reelection. And the
result is a system that must suffer through impeachment hearings, cannot
prepare itself for a pandemic, is unable to regulate the stock market, and
continually fails people of color. 


Gehl and Porter unpack the five forces that continue to drive our political
system downward, and lay out their plans for a new voting system that could
change the incentives.Check it out
<[link removed]>
.



<[link removed]>

<[link removed]>
(Don’t) put your money where your mouth is (unless your mouth is with us)
<[link removed]>

“Polarization is profitable,” says EarthX founder Trammell Crow in a column
this week for the Dallas News. “It buys votes and sells ads. Neatly sorted by
our prejudices, Americans across the spectrum are easy targets for those who
pander to our fears. No politician or media outlet in a competitive market can
resist the pull of this black hole.”


Crow proposes a different way forward: instead of donating billions of dollars
to “win” the White House this year (an amount that only grows as the two
parties work to cancel each other out), don’t. Instead, he encourages readers
to come together, reject descending into inter-party madness, and invest in
nonpartisan electoral reforms.



<[link removed]>

<[link removed]>
It’s good to be back… wear your bike helmets.

 

Brett
__
Brett Maney
Senior Communications Manager
Unite America
Support Unite America <[link removed]>


Want to stop receiving our weekly Three Things Thursday emails? Unsubscribe
<[link removed]>
 from Three Things Thursday, or Unsubscribe
<[link removed]>
from all Unite America communications.

Unite America | 1580 Lincoln St Suite #520 Denver, CO 80218
Paid for by Unite America.
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
www.uniteamerica.org <[link removed]>