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A man wearing a protective mask holds a sign outside Madison Square Garden, a polling station, on the first day of early voting in Manhattan. October 24, 2020. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
According to new polling data from PRRI, 86 percent of Americans are concerned that there will be widespread violent protests in the aftermath of the upcoming election, revealing that both Republicans and Democrats share this fear.
Members of Extinction Rebellion perform in New York City on October 24, 2020. Photo: lev radin / Shutterstock.com
Here’s some hopeful news: Voters are turning out in droves across the country in advance of next Tuesday’s election. According to the United States Elections Project, as of Oct. 28, more than 74,000,000 Americans have voted: that’s more than half of the total votes counted in the 2016 election. Cities like Chicago are breaking their early voting records. New York City’s overwhelmed poll centers added additional hours for the weekend before Election Day. Youth voter turnout is up overall, and Texas is leading with the biggest youth vote participation in the country.
The group Nuns and Nones gathers virtually for get-out-the-vote efforts. Image via screenshot from their Every Vote Is Sacred video.
Behind the scenes, in prayer, organizing, poll-working, and demonstrating, Catholic sisters are participating in a milieu of ways that haven’t gone viral.
An election worker places mail-in ballots into a voting box at a drive-through drop off location at the Registrar of Voters for San Diego County in San Diego, Calif., Oct. 19, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
The Supreme Court on Wednesday dealt setbacks to Republicans by allowing extended deadlines for receiving mail-in ballots in next Tuesday's election in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, states pivotal to President Donald Trump's re-election chances.
The Supreme Court of the United States is seen in Washington, D.C., Aug. 29, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by President Donald Trump's campaign to block North Carolina's extension of the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots in the latest voting case ahead of Tuesday's election.
Photo courtesy of Loose the Chains.
“Nine times out of 10, we’ll just be greeting people and passing out water and snacks,” said Billy Michael Honor, who directs Loose the Chains, the faith engagement initiative of The New Georgia Project “But in the event that something does happen, it’s good to have people there who know how to lead people in situations of conflict or crisis.”
Elijah Moss, Rev. Otis Moss Jr., and Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III are pictured filming for Otis' Dream. Image courtesy Otis Moss III.
In an effort to call faith-based communities to action during the 2020 election season, his grandson Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, shares his family’s story in the 14-minute film, Otis’ Dream.
Chris has attended the same local church for five years. When services went remote due to the coronavirus pandemic, Chris and his partner noticed paid staff of the church sharing misinformation about hydroxychloroquine on social media. Chris hoped that the church leadership, including the pastor, would push back.
A supporter of President Donald Trump wears a QAnon shirt after participating in a caravan convoy circuit in Adairsville, Ga., Sept. 5, 2020. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
Why does QAnon resonate with these evangelicals? Part of the answer is their strong political alignment with the president, but it’s also true that evangelicals have long organized around the issue of human trafficking. And according to the major anti-human trafficking organizations in the U.S., that axis of devotion and suceptibility due to political alignment is creating a nightmare for their work.
Images: Shutterstock / Design: Candace Sanders
Faith communities across the U.S. are looking to help further democracy by ensuring that 100 percent of the eligible voters in their congregations turn out for the 2020 election.
Rev. Greg Lewis, assistant pastor at Saint Gabriel’s Church of God in Christ in Milwaukee and president and founder of Souls to the Polls. Photo courtesy of Souls to the Polls
Souls to the Polls has a big vision: energizing 100,000 Milwaukee residents to vote. To get there, the nonpartisan organization educates, registers, and transports voters to polling sites in Wisconsin, a battleground state with rising COVID-19 case numbers.
Sister Jane Ann Slater. Image via screenshot from Our Lady of the Lake University video
As political groups across the country make their last appeals to Christian voters, often pointing to a narrow set of issues, Sister Jane Ann Slater, chancellor of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio, wants the people of faith to think more broadly — looking at the total of what a candidate or ballot proposition brings to the community.
A voter casts his ballot next to a bottle of hand sanitizer on the first day of in-person voting in Wisconsin, U.S., October 20, 2020. REUTERS/Bing Guan
Siding with Wisconsin's Republican-led legislature, the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to allow an extension ordered by a federal judge in the deadline for returning mail-in ballots in the state, dealing a setback to Democrats.
Voters walk past a Trump sign as they wait to cast ballots in Wake Forest, N.C. Sharkshock / Shutterstock.com
Voter intimidation — harassing voters, spreading misinformation, or asking them about their citizenship — is never allowed under federal law. And many states prohibit explicit electioneering, such as handing out pamphlets endorsing a specific candidate. But when it comes to apparel, state laws and enforcement vary.
Activists and students holding signs march on the streets of downtown Toronto during a climate change rally on Black Friday, Nov. 29, 2019. Photo Ramona Diaconescu / Shutterstock.com
Addressing climate change is a faith-based obligation to “protect God’s creation,” say 81 percent of American religious voters surveyed in a poll released this morning from Climate Nexus and Yale and George Mason’s respective programs on climate change communications.
Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I arrive for an inter-religious prayer service in Rome, Italy, on October 20, 2020. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
"Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They are children of God and have a right to a family," says Francis in a new film.
Voters at a polling station in Marietta, Georgia, on October 13, 2020. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
The Council on American-Islamic Relations of Minnesota has accused a private security company of violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by hiring ex-U.S. military Special Operations soldiers to patrol polling places. The company, Atlas Aegis, posted a job listing in early October looking for former Special Operations personnel to “[staff] security positions in Minnesota during the November Election and beyond to protect election polls.”
Workers install one of 123 Vote by Mail Drop Boxes outside a public library, amid the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Los Angeles, California, U.S., September 11, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
With four weeks to go before Election Day, more than 4 million Americans already have voted, more than 50 times the 75,000 at this time in 2016, according to the United States Elections Project, which compiles early voting data.
Philadelphia City Hall is pictured as early voting for the 2020 election begins at a satellite voting location at City Hall in Philadelphia, Sept. 29, 2020. REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski/FILE PHOTO
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed an extension of the deadline for mail-in absentee ballots in Pennsylvania for the Nov. 3 election, declining a Republican request to block a lower court's ruling that gave voters more time.
Ashley Nealy waits in line to cast her ballot in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 12, 2020. REUTERS/Chris Aluka Berr
According to new survey data released by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), 57 percent of Americans ranked fairness of presidential elections as the top critical issue in the country when asked to choose from 14 issues ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to racial inequality.