Joshua A. Douglas

In contrast to the anxiety surrounding our voting system, with stories about voter suppression and manipulation, there are actually quite a few positive initiatives toward voting rights reform. Professor Joshua A. Douglas, an expert on our electoral system, examines these encouraging developments in his inspiring new book about how regular Americans are working to take back their democracy, one community at a time. Told through the narratives of those working on positive voting rights reforms, Vote for US (Prometheus) includes chapters on expanding voter eligibility, easing voter registration rules, making voting more convenient, enhancing accessibility at the polls, providing voters with more choices, finding ways to comply with voter ID rules, giving redistricting back to the voters, pushing back on big money through local and state efforts, using journalism to make the system more accountable, and improving civics education. Unusually accessible for a lay audience and thoroughly researched, Vote for US gives anyone fed up with our current political environment the ideas and tools necessary to affect change in their own communities. This event is sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Portland and the League of Women Voters of Oregon.