Change Your World Week Winter 2022 (Archived)

The webpages under the Vote With Confidence tab were created by Lisa Lawrason's students.

American democracy is in trouble. And only "we the people" have the power to fix it. A recent NPR/Ipsos poll found that 64 percent of Americans believe that U.S. democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing” (Rose and Baker 2022). Without trust in the democratic process – of which elections are the centerpiece – we lose our peaceful means of resolving conflict and people resort to non-peaceful means. These pages are designed to investigate and raise awareness about the rules of elections in the United States – and in Michigan specifically – to identify ways in which they might be broken. Students chose one part of the registration/voting/election election process and evaluated it according to principles of fairness, integrity and equity. Then they drew conclusions about whether it needed to be fixed. If, in their investigation, they discovered that there was nothing broken, then they are raising awareness about the strength and durability of our elections, in hopes of solidifying public trust. If they found that the system needs repair, then they are advocating for a change in the rules among those who have the power to enact such changes: state legislators. By visiting these pages and signing petitions that you support, YOU can take action to restore trust in American democracy.