Local election officials are the unsung heroes of democracy. This year, they’ve been tasked with an Olympian feat: administering a presidential election during a pandemic without adequate funding, while implementing ever-changing legislative mandates and judicial decisions. “Being an election official right now is like being pushed into a batting cage without a bat and all of the pitching machines are being aimed at you,” said Tina Barton, the city clerk in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Elizabeth Howard, a former election official herself, describes this crucial work. Despite the odds stacked against them, election officials across the country are making it work. They deserve our thanks. // Read More

Encouraging Black turnout on the one hand and dissuading it on the other are two prongs of the same strategy of voter depression. In a Washington Post op-ed, the Brennan Center’s Theodore R. Johnson and Harvard Kennedy School’s Leah Wright Rigueur argue that President Trump is employing voter depression as a campaign strategy — convincing voters they’re underappreciated and poorly served by their preferred party, making symbolic overtures to them to counter accusations of intolerance or exclusion, and eroding their faith in electoral processes. “It remains to be seen if voter depression will be effective in 2020,” they write. “More worrisome, perhaps, is what it reveals: that politicians are often less concerned with responding to the policy demands of Black voters — and more interested in limiting their participation.” // Washington Post

With criminal justice on the ballot nationwide, we’ve compiled a list of 40 ballot initiatives and law enforcement electoral races worth watching on Election Day. This page provides short summaries of each criminal justice ballot initiative or race, with fresh and updated links to media coverage of the contests culled from reliable news sources. From police oversight to immigration roundups in “sanctuary” jurisdictions, this election will have far-reaching consequences for federal criminal justice issues and state and local policies. // Read More

The slightest brush with the law can lead to a lifetime trapped in an inescapable cycle of poverty. Approximately $372 billion in earnings are lost in the United States each year for those who have a criminal conviction or have spent time in prison — enough to close New York City’s poverty gap 60 times over. It’s no secret that the criminal justice system has economic implications for those who serve time, but from our new report, we now understand just how devastating those impacts are. Robin Hood’s Wes Moore writes, “The systemic inequities of our criminal justice system are glaring, and we cannot continue to turn a blind eye.” // Time

Earlier this month, Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security, released his department’s annual assessment of violent threats to the nation. In a foreword, he wrote that he was “particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years.” But while federal authorities may be showing a new resolve to tackle the problem, experts warn that the extremists are showing even greater determination. “Now they feel sanctioned. They think, ‘my violence is no longer criminal, it’s allowed, it’s what the president wants us to do,’” said Brennan Center Fellow Michael German. // Guardian

• Ángel Díaz on how social media surveillance disproportionately hurts people of color // Intercept
• Douglas Keith on the politicization of state supreme courts // ABC News
• Michael Li on redistricting and Texas House races // Texas Observer
• Lawrence Norden on the importance of good ballot design // CBS This Morning
• Myrna Pérez on voter suppression // Texas Observer
• Yurij Rudensky on who will be counted if Missouri’s discriminatory redistricting referendum passes // Columbia Missourian
• Wendy Weiser on the Supreme Court and the election // Washington Post
• Thomas Wolf on Trump’s attempts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment // Washington Post