Oregon has room to improve when it comes to drawing voting-district lines, according to a new report.
The nonpartisan elections watchdog Common Cause gives the state a grade of C-minus for its redistricting process, which happens when states receive census data and use it to map the borders of legislative districts.
Executive Director of Common Cause Oregon Kate Titus said Oregon is a model of democracy's best practices in many respects, and consistently has high voter participation.
"But when it comes to redistricting, Oregon has a process that's controlled by the Legislature," said Titus, "and that's inherently problematic, because legislators have a conflict of interest in drawing the lines of the districts that they're going to run in."
The report criticizes Oregon for inadequate public outreach and failing to incorporate public input, especially from Confederated Tribe of Warm Springs members over their concerns that the map split their reservation from the nearby city of Madras.
Dan Vicuña is the director of redistricting and representation for Common Cause. He said in past decades, redistricting was a relatively unknown and unscrutinized process.
However, Vicuña said he believes the public is increasingly connecting the shape of voting maps to their fight for resources.
"The public understands that whether you're kept in one district with a community that shares concerns of all sorts," said Vicuña, "can really make the difference between having a champion in the halls of power, or not having a champion."
Vicuña said the states the fared best in the report are the ones that took redistricting out of the hands of legislators in favor of independent, bipartisan commissions.
California and Massachusetts scored the highest grades - A-minus.
Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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North Carolina lacks laws mandating time off for employees to vote, making it hard for workers who juggle demanding schedules and civic responsibilities but some businesses are filling the gap to ensure their teams can participate in the election without losing pay.
Jennifer Curtis, co-founder and CEO of Firsthand Foods, is one of them. She shared her company's commitment to paid voting leave is not just practical, it is part of fostering a workplace that values civic engagement.
"Our employees greatly value flexibility and so we have a very generous flex time policy for them to work whatever their needs are around what works with the job," Curtis explained. "For voting, we explicitly give them paid time off to go vote."
Only 28 states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring employers to give employees time off to vote.
Seth Gross, owner of Bull City Burger and Brewery in Durham, also encourages his employees to vote. Gross believes ensuring every employee has the opportunity to vote supports a healthier democracy and encourages a sense of empowerment among his team.
In the hospitality industry, where many employees work nontraditional hours and may feel disconnected from the political process, Gross sees voting as a crucial way for workers to have a voice.
"We have a lot of folks who maybe feel marginalized or when you're working for tips, it's not exactly the kind of job where people think the highest regards of all the time and these folks may feel like, you know, what I have to say doesn't matter and that's simply not true," Gross asserted. "I want all of our employees to go out and vote. I want the entire hospitality industry to go out and vote."
For Gross, the hospitality industry's role in supporting local communities through everything from disaster response to organizing support for those in need only reinforces the importance of engaged, community-focused leadership. He believes voting can help shape it.
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Early voter turnout in Wyoming has been high leading up to Election Day, and a survey shows most think local vote counting will be reliable.
However, many feel differently about vote counting nationally.
A new election year survey from the University of Wyoming shows that nearly 90% of people in Wyoming think the vote counting process is very or somewhat reliable in their county, and data is similar at the state level.
But confidence drops with country-wide vote counting, which just under 60% of those surveyed think is reliable.
Libby Skarin, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming, said that hasn't stopped Wyomingites from participating.
"Overall what we've seen from the majority of people is that people are feeling good about the election," said Skarin. "They know that our elections are safe and secure, and we've seen a lot of folks already turning out to vote early."
According to Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, absentee turnout by mail and in person hit over 100,000 by midday Friday, November 1. That's more than 30% of registered voters in the state.
Wyoming voter information is available at letsvotewyo.org.
Polls are open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Anyone in line to vote at the evening cutoff has the right to remain in line and cast a ballot after that time.
Skarin said voters shouldn't expect any hiccups on Election Day. But if issues come up or a voter has questions, a national election protection hotline is available.
"That hotline is for use for anyone who might be experiencing issues or having questions at the polls," said Skarin. "It will connect you with people, live, who can help walk you through your rights and answer questions for you."
To reach the hotline, voters can dial 866-OUR-VOTE.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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Researchers at the University of Washington are watching closely as rumors and false claims swirl ahead of Election Day.
The University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public has been following and analyzing misleading rumors popping up online.
Many false claims about election interference have focused on Pennsylvania, the largest swing state in the 2024 presidential race.
Kate Starbird - professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering, who co-founded the Center - said many rumors start with a kernel of truth, such as an isolated case where a voting machine didn't record a vote correctly.
"When people are saying machines aren't working, this is true," said Starbird. "It starts as a rumor but eventually becomes just fact. But it gets twisted into the this narrative that it's an intentional effort to disenfranchise certain voters, and that's false. So we can see that sort of intentionality is one place it gets twisted."
Starbird said when incidents become misleading rumors, they can obscure the remedies.
She also noted that isolated events are sometimes extrapolated to make it seem as if they're widespread when that's not the case.
She said the twisting of evidence is part of an attempt to undermine the results of the election.
Last week, fires were set at ballot drop boxes in Vancouver and Portland.
Stephen Prochaska, a graduate research assistant at the Center for an Informed Public, said people on the right and left already had a frame in place for interpreting events like these that involve blaming the other side.
"Oftentimes, they're improvising based off of these events that no one really knows to predict," said Prochaska. "Like, we don't know that that's going to happen. But they have these frames set and are able to cue audiences on how to interpret that. And this is bipartisan."
Starbird said a diverse group of actors, including influencers on social media, content creators and organizations, are loosely collaborating to define what the narrative of the 2024 election will be.
"We don't know what it is," said Starbird. "We'll have to wait for the election results, but the improvisation has been going on all along and they're certainly very active right now and they've got a very participatory audience."
Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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