Daily Resource Highlight - 6/01/2021

Posted by on June 01, 2021 at 4:44 PM

Below are the highlights and featured resources of this past week’s Daily* Resource.

5/25/2021 - AfP is Teaching How to Turn Down the Partisan Temperature

When I was in law school, I chose to live in a house with two other law students -- both of whom I disagreed with on politics and policy. When we argued about such topics, I often felt myself getting frustrated and raising my voice. Nevertheless, there was a baseline of respect among us that kept our conversations civil.

Is it possible to have these kinds of conversations with people we don’t know as well? Our friends at Alliance for Peacebuilding think so, and they are showing how tomorrow, May 26th at 2 PM ET. During this webinar, conflict resolution leaders (including Bridge Alliance strategic partner MBBI) will discuss three keys for facilitating productive, cross-partisan conversation:

  • When to have such conversations;
  • How to make them productive; and
  • How to avoid “doing harm.”

If you are interested in learning more about how to have successful cross-divide discussions, check your calendar now and then register for: “What Makes a Good Interaction Between Divided Groups and How to Ensure We ‘Do No Harm’?”

On a related note, the Center for Election Science (CES) is working hard to spread awareness about Approval Voting -- an innovative method of voting where voters can select multiple candidates and the candidate with the broadest support wins. The hope is that this will encourage candidates to appeal to all voters, rather than just their “base.” 

CES achieved a major milestone in 2020 when Fargo, ND conducted the first ever approval voting election. You can read more about that election and their larger goals in CES' 2020 annual report. 

 

5/27/2021 - Is Student Voting a Priority for You? You Need to Know SLSV

My message to you today is pretty straightforward -- if you care about getting college students to the polls, you need to be familiar with the Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) coalition.

SLSV is a project of the National Conference on Citizenship and “is the national hub and largest nonpartisan network in the United States dedicated to increasing college student voter participation.” Their partner list is diverse and impressive, and includes universities, advocacy organizations, non-profits, and student-led organizations from throughout the nation.

If you would like to learn more about SLSV and how you get involved / support its mission, they have informational meetings happening throughout the summer; from June through early September.

Relatedly, part of the mission of SLSV is to empower traditionally underrepresented groups, such as people of color. While FairVote isn’t part of the SLSV coalition, they believe their voting reform -- Ranked Choice Voting -- could be a piece of the empowerment puzzle. According to their latest research, candidates of color tend to be the biggest beneficiaries of RCV. You can read about all of their case studies and the resulting conclusions here.

 

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