Another election season is nearly upon us. Most people tend to associate elections with casting a vote. But there’s far more that goes into being an informed voter, and an engaged citizen. 

The first step in becoming an educated voter is finding reliable sources of information about candidates, issues, and ballot questions. 

Common Ground Committee Voting Resources

We have created a portal that will help you vote in the upcoming election.  You can even download our handy, Help Me Vote guide to get started.

We have also created an easy-to-use Scorecard to compare candidates in your region (searchable by zip code or official name). In addition to learning about the candidate’s background, officials are given a “score” that corresponds to their track record of nonpartisan decision-making and compromise.

Partner Voting Resources

There are also a number of other organizations that provide voters with neutral and nonpartisan insights into their ballots, with unbiased sources of information. Many are united under the umbrella of the unifying group, the Bridge Alliance. 

One example is Ballotpedia, a digital encyclopedia of American politics, elections, and policy. It provides curated content on all levels of U.S. politics that is relevant, reliable, and available for all.

Within the Bridge Alliance is a page dedicated to the breakdown of different member categories — focused on topics ranging from think tanks and youth empowerment to fact-checking and corruption. Its page focused upon election integrity is particularly timely as we come up on midterm elections, spotlighting members making progress in opening up our electoral systems and reducing the influence of the political parties.

Similarly, Citizen Connect is a non-partisan platform dedicated to helping Americans heal political divides and strengthen democracy through finding civic organizations and events—based on civility, fairness, and fact-based reason. Its events are both virtual and in-person, held through a variety of outlets and partners.   Citizen Connect has also created a helpful voting portal.

How to Volunteer to be a Poll Worker

When it comes to the smooth running of elections, workers and volunteers are essential to ensuring that elections function efficiently and accurately. Each election requires the work of millions of Americans to uphold this process, the handling of ballots that are the tangible core of democracy.

This is more critical than ever, with multiple states reporting a shortage of poll workers. As the pandemic wanes but is still with us – as are ongoing concerns about political violence — America continues to face a critical shortfall of workers. Some 130,000 poll workers have stopped serving over the past three midterm elections, according to the group Vet the Vote. The organization offers volunteers a link to sign up, with a focus on ushering in the participation of veterans. Sign up opportunities are also available through the portal with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. 

While November may seem far off, it is around the corner.   Check out these resources to help you have a voting plan and make the election run smoothly.

Public discourse has grown increasingly polarized in recent years, creating divisiveness that has consequences in government, in communities, within families, on social media, and of course, within organizations and workplaces. 

Political conversations between colleagues are fraught with unintended consequences: uncomfortable or hostile relationships, feelings of exclusion, or alienation, if leadership of an organization takes a stance on an issue that they disagree with.  

In addition to tension, this causes an erosion of employee trust, which is the foundation of a productive and cohesive workplace. Employees are increasingly engaging in political conversations at work, and disagreements are impairing their ability to work cooperatively with colleagues with whom they disagree. Internal messaging that reveals a bias creates an “Us vs. Them” mentality within the organization. Employees need guidance to navigate these conversations in a respectful manner, following messaging that starts at the top. The bottom line—in addition to the financial one—is that top officers need to partner with supervisors up and down the org chart to ensure that internal messaging and leadership promotes unity based on shared goals and values rather than points of contention.  

Common Ground Committee (CGC) is a nonprofit organization that encourages action reducing polarization by bringing together prominent leaders with opposing views in public forums to find common ground. This conversation is as needed in the workplace as it is in government chambers, the media, and street corners.  

 To this end, CGC has created the Ten Attributes of a Common Grounder, guidelines for conducting useful, nonpartisan conversations among disagreeing parties to help them converse more peacefully and productively. They are applicable to all kinds of environments and can be used by an organization’s top officers to promote an atmosphere of trust and respect within the workforce, and to ensure that internal messaging brings light, not heat, to discussions where colleagues disagree. 

IDENTIFY AND SET ASIDE PERSONAL BIASES.
We all carry personal beliefs, ,biases and opinions. As you approach a conversation, be aware of yours. Be willing to test them against new information and recognize when they
may be closing your thoughts to what the other person is saying. 

COMMIT TO SEEK AGREEMENT, PROGRESS AND SOLUTIONS.
Approach discussion or debates with an objective of trying to find common ground and solutions, not win arguments. Use a “let’s work it out” attitude. 

LISTEN FIRST TO LEARN PERSPECTIVES AND EXPERIENCES.
It’s hard to work with someone if you aren’t listening to them. It’s also difficult to engage in a dialogue until the other person knows you have heard them. Active listening establishes the foundation for real communication. It provides the opportunity for the “I never thought of it that way” moment. 

DON’T ASSUME, BUT SEEK TO UNDERSTAND MOTIVES AND INTENTIONS.
Understanding the motives and intentions behind someone’s position is necessary to finding common ground. The challenge comes when we assume, often erroneously, that we know those motives and intentions because we have accepted commonly held beliefs about people who take that position. Don’t fall into that trap. Instead, ask the questions that clarify the person’s true motivation.

USE AND ACCEPT FACTS.
Rather than emotional arguments, bring verified facts to the conversation. If you are presented with verified facts, accept them, even when they don’t fit your narrative. It’s fine to examine
them carefully and to see if something is missing, but don’t reject them dogmatically. 

SEEK OUTCOMES ALL CAN LIVE WITH BUT DON’T COMPROMISE PRINCIPLES.
Don’t go into a discussion with predetermined expectations of the outcomes. Be prepared to be flexible and work to find an approach that addresses the concerns of all parties (including yours). But don’t feel obligated to go along with something that you feel violates your principles. Be prepared to “agree to disagree.” 

ACCEPT THAT GOOD PEOPLE MAY DISAGREE.
Because people have different experiences and viewpoints, they may not share your values. It’s not necessary to always agree on what’s important or why. But it is crucial not to
equate a difference in values with whether a person is good or bad. Don’t let arguments divert you from appreciating your fellow person. If someone is unreasonably dogmatic in a
way that violates your principles, it may be best not to engage. 

STAY RESPECTFUL.
Watch what you are saying and how you are saying it so that you don’t degrade the quality of the conversation. Eliminate pejoratives from your vocabulary. If your temperature starts
to rise, take a breath, and shift to a different line of discussion. 

RESIST DEMONIZING.
There are two points to be made here:
• Name-calling and personal attacks on groups and individuals are currently part of everyday political conversation. Don’t succumb to the temptation to use these methods.
• Watch your own thinking. When you hear these types of attacks, don’t accept them. The more you do, the harder it will be to engage with others. 

DE-ESCALATE HOSTILE SITUATIONS.
• This is about controlling your thought and thereby your actions.
• Be alert to everyone’s temperature. It may be best to shift to a different line of discussion or a totally different topic before people become angry with each other.
• If you find yourself in a hostile situation, don’t contribute to the hostility. Identifying and expressing what you appreciate about the other person’s ideas and intent can help. As with attribute 7, don’t let arguments — even heated ones — divert you from appreciating your fellow person.
 

Common Ground Committee (CGC) is a non-partisan, citizen-led organization that inspires action on polarizing issues by bringing prominent leaders with opposing views together in public forums to find common ground. Since its founding in 2009, the organization has hosted dozens of notable panelists including John Kerry, Condoleezza Rice, Michael Steele, and Donna Brazile to find points of consensus on issues ranging from race and income inequality to America’s role in the world.  

Nearly 90% of congressional elections are decided in the nominating contests. That’s a striking number, and one that demands a simple action: Vote in the primaries.

The midterm primaries have begun, and candidates are being selected for local, state, and federal offices. Some states have “open primaries,” in which any registered voter can cast a ballot regardless of party affiliation (or lack thereof). However, in states with “closed primaries,” voters must be registered with a party to participate in that side’s nominating contests.

And that’s where most congressional races are decided. The data is clear: The vast majority of U.S. House districts lean so far to either party that the November result is a foregone conclusion. In 2020, just one-quarter of the voting-eligible population participated in the presidential primaries. And when considering the districts that determined control of the House, just 10% of voters selected 83% of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to a study by Unite America.

With primary elections increasingly deciding the outcome of a race, it’s important that voters engage in the entire process when possible. For partisans, that’s easy. In every state, voting-eligible people who are registered with a party can vote in that party’s primaries. While primary voting is often limited to just party members, other states allow all registered voters to participate.

Advocates of open primaries argue that closed systems are unfair to independents (who make up about more than 40% of the electorate), produce more extreme nominees, and, as publicly funded elections, should be open to everyone.

Opponents argue only members of a party should be allowed to select its nominees and open primaries are subject to subversion by voters of another party hoping to nominate an “unelectable” candidate. (Research out of Marquette University argues such sabotage, if it exists, would cancel itself out.)

Others have argued that partisans in places where their party may be unlikely to win a general election (say, Democrats in Mississippi or Republicans in Massachusetts) should vote in the opposing party’s primary, not to sabotage the race but to try to nominate a more moderate candidate.

Because so few people – the most partisan people – are determining primary winners, candidates who appeal to party wings are most likely to advance to the general election. Voters are then asked to choose between candidates who have ignored the middle. But there are still options for finding candidates who are willing to work across the aisle.

One tool is the Common Ground Scorecard, which assesses elected officials and candidates on their willingness to pursue solutions through listening and productive conversation, rather than scoring political points. Using nearly 20 objective and subjective data points from a variety of bipartisan sources, the Scorecard can help voters determine which candidates to support if good policymaking is more important than party identity. It considers five key areas:

• Official Performance — bipartisan bill sponsorship for legislators or bipartisan job approval for executives
• Personal Actions — public conversation across political differences and joining an official from the opposing party for a visit of their district
• Communication — promoting common ground
• Commitments — affirmation of Common Grounder Commitments
• Outstanding Common Grounder — awarded for common ground behavior or boldly champions common ground

The Scorecard grades incumbents and candidates for five offices: president, vice president, senator, House member, and governor. Try it out now.

Learn how your state handles primary voting.

Check the primary date for your state.

What is the role of the media in our current state of polarization, and the twisting of facts to suit an agenda? That was the topic of a panel with Chris Wallace of CNN and Jonathan Karl, ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent. The event, “Media, Politics, and Polarization,” was hosted by former CBS correspondent and author Jacqueline Adams.  

 There were three main topics on the table: the perception of media as increasingly polarized; the power of the media; and the solutions for fixing distrust of the media. 

Why do you think there’s such a public distrust of the media? Jacqueline Adams asked. She cited a Gallop poll last year that indicated increasingly skeptical public opinion of the media – particularly among Republicans. 

 Karl said he didn’t find that surprising, since the most prominent Republican, and president of the U.S., Donald Trump, called the media the public enemy of the people. But the progression was already underway, Wallace pointed out. The reason for Fox’s rise back in the late 90s was that a large part of the population felt underserved. Fox gave them a news outlet that they hadn’t seen before Trump was an accelerant. It was an answer to their sense for decades that the mainstream media wasn’t speaking to them.  

 How powerful is the press, really? Adams suggested the influence could be seen in its real-world impact—most recently, as a driver of perception about COVID. She presented the results of a study that demonstrated a dramatic difference of opinion toward the pandemic: Those who watch MSNBC reports on COVID risks expressed three times as much concern over the risk of COVID than viewers of Fox did.  

 Democrats and Republicans had a very different slant toward the lockdown, Wallace said, comparing it to the polio generation’s embrace of the vaccine, which was not at all political. Today, he said, the response to COVID and the vaccine was an echo chamber of politics and media. “Media kind of followed the political divide,” he said. “It didn’t create the political divide.” 

 What options does the media have to reduce the divisions among its programming, and viewers? Adams asked. Fact-checkers are already working overtime to reality-check the spin put on by both parties. What’s the solution to dial this back to center? 

Karl interjected that he felt uncomfortable with the characterization of “the media this, the media that.” The media is such a diverse landscape, he said, with a wide range of outlets—from Twitter to podcasts and newspaper comments feedback online — that it can’t be painted with one brush. Most news consumers will follow the feed that matches their beliefs. Not surprisingly, many outlets don’t mind the divide, and in fact, benefit from fanning the flames.  

“We’re not two political philosophies,” Wallace said, “We’re two tribes, with not just different beliefs, but different truths.” If you’re a politician moving toward the middle, there’s the fear of reprisal by your competition. Until there’s a market incentive to compromise, there’s a lack of motivation for finding common ground. “I have a good friend who deals with news start-ups, both print and digital, and he was making a pitch to investors to tell it down the middle,” Wallace said. The investors told him, that the market doesn’t reward that—it rewards news with a point of view. “Until we can get away from that, news as a business, you’ll take a loss if you tell it straight.” 

What if the news networks stopped giving air time to guests who make outrageously biased statements? Adams asked. How much do ratings play into the choice of topics and guests? 

If I don’t do well in ratings, Karl said, I’m probably not going to have the chance to continue what I do. But mistakes happen when you focus purely on ratings. Years ago, whenever there was a car chase, they’d cover it live in real-time. Then it becomes, “My God, where’s it going to go?” “When are they going to catch them?” It was beyond OJ and the Bronco. You gain an audience,” he said. “But it doesn’t work over time and erodes the brand”  “CNN’s brand was, ‘News You Can Trust.’ Look at Chris Cuomo bringing his brother on. People watched again and again. But it eroded some credibility.” You can’t just look at ratings, he said, because it will be a failed business model in the end.  

The takeaway, Wallace said, should be that there doesn’t need to be too much wringing of hands, because there’s some great reporting happening every day. “In the end, it’s really on citizens: do you want a different government and climate, political ecology? It’s on each of us in our various roles to push for it.” 

There’s plenty of space for opinion journalism, Karl said, but we need to have news organizations dedicated to nothing more than pursuing the facts and truth as far as we’re able to discern it. “My opinion is that we’re in an extremely polarized period, but we’ve had this before, perhaps worse,” he said. “The pendulum will swing.” 

To see the full event, you can watch the recording. 

In contrast to Justice Potter Stewart’s 1964 observation about pornography, “we know it when we see it,” fake news is something that may be very hard to recognize.

There’s a reason so many people are confused or deceived by the information presented as fact. That’s because the way information is presented (and misrepresented) has become both more sophisticated and more convoluted. At its most basic, though, when done intentionally, the goal is simple: to confuse the public enough to make them question what they thought to be true.

Fake news is also about validating a deeply held narrative. Take, for example, Putin and the effort he’s made to not just keep people from seeing the truth, but also to validate their belief that Russia is a good country that it’s only defending itself and innocent Ukrainians are being brutalized by a Nazi regime. The tactic is very effective in case they hear something to the contrary.

When people can’t distinguish between facts and fakes, it creates confusion and misunderstanding about important and timely issues. And when people become jaded into a generalized sense that they “can’t believe anything you see/hear/read,” it intensifies polarization, messes with electoral outcomes, and undermines overall trust in legitimate news sources.

Another example can be seen in the recent news surrounding the invasion of Ukraine. “Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook are all full of ‘firsthand accounts’ and ‘threads from contacts’ and other such things. While many of them are legitimate, many, many more are not. There is old footage, deep fakes, made-up personal accounts of events, and more,” explains Sree Sreenivasan, managing director of Cronkite Pro, a global training initiative of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, in his weekly newsletter. Even official government statements from Ukraine should be taken with a grain of salt, he says. “Information wars go both ways, and just because your side says something you want to hear, doesn’t make it true.”

As we wrote recently in An Introduction to Fake News, fake news can be “disinformation,” exaggerated or mistakenly presented as news — or misinformation, delivered with the intention to deceive. Either way, there are a collection of attributes that news consumers should be alert to.

An important first step is being skeptical of any claims going viral, says FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. As a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters, Factcheck.org applies journalism and scholarship to reduce the level of deception and confusion in politics by monitoring the factual accuracy of what is distributed in the media (both traditional and social).

When FactCheck.org first began warning the public in 2008, the most common red flags were excessive use of exclamation points, anonymous authors or sources, misspellings and odd use of capital letters, and in the case of chain e-mail, insistence that “This is NOT a hoax!”

Things have become more complicated since the days of emails from Nigerian princes looking for partners in investment. This is particularly true of outlets and websites that appear more professional, where the public’s level of scrutiny needs to go up a notch.

“A lot of posts that really take off tend to tap into presuppositions, appeal to somebody for example who thinks Democrats are always raising taxes. We recommend trying to check your biases. Much of this stuff plays into emotions, designed to make people angry or scared,” says Lori Robertson, managing editor of FactCheck.org. Always do a gut check before believing what you read, and definitely, before passing it on, she says. Otherwise, you’re just adding to the clickbait.

Some questions to ask of any article:

*Scrutinize the tone. Is there an angle being pushed? There’s a difference between an article that gets one fact wrong, either through shoddy or inexperienced journalism, and one that beats the drum for one viewpoint, with biased, questionable, or false sources.

*Does the source cited actually support the claim? Some official-looking sources have nothing whatsoever to do with the conclusion the article is trying to make. Linking to the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012 seems like it adds legitimacy. But it doesn’t back up a story that a candidate is, say, trying to ban prenatal vitamins or legalize cocaine.

*Check the date and circumstances of an event that’s being credited to (or blamed on) a current politician. A headline referencing something that happened years ago can suggest causality where there is none—or deny causality where there is. Some photos and videos coming out of Ukraine are being disputed by Russian officials as footage from unrelated past wars.

*Who’s the author? Are they really who their credentials say they are? John Doe might have won an impressive number of esteemed awards and literary publications. But a few keystrokes can reveal whether or not he conferred them upon himself.

*Remember to sniff for satire or parody. Some fake news is offered simply for entertainment value, like The Onion. These stories don’t attempt to deceive readers because they aren’t meant to be taken seriously. Still, believe it or not, there are some people who take the Borowitz Report literally. Think before you retweet.

*Deep face videos do exist. But they aren’t generally done well enough or with credible enough material to go viral, says Robertson. Still, if you see something that seems too extraordinarily far-fetched or out of character, that might not be the horse to put your money on, even if you think you’re getting it from the horse’s mouth.

Would you like to dig deeper?

Visit our event Facts, Fake News, and the Media for an in-depth discussion between CNN+ anchor, Chris Wallace and NYT correspondent, Maggie Haberman.