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Get Informed
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State & Local Elections Explained
When you get your ballot, you may be a little overwhelmed by the number of things to vote on. Besides federal elections like voting for the President, you’ll also potentially be voting in many other races, from Governor to School Board. Check out these guides explaining what all these positions are and why they matter.
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Pennsylvania Elections & Politics
New to voting in PA? Seasoned PA voter looking for more info? Check out the comprehensive Pennsylvania Voting Guide to learn about registering, different methods of voting, election data, election security, and more!
Want to catch up on Pennsylvania politics? Visit the Pennsylvania Department of State Election Returns website to read about the most recent PA elections. You can view election results as far back as 2000, break down the data by county and office, and more!
Redistricting & Gerrymandering
Redistricting is the process of using population data gathered by the Census and creating regions for both political and municipal use. Gerrymandering is when the people in control of drawing those borders do so in a way that specifically disadvantages a group of people so that their votes do not hold equal weight in elections. This is usually done by either putting everyone who tends to vote a certain way into one or a few districts, or by spreading those voters out so there are no districts that they hold the majority in. This PowerPoint presentation offers more information, including relevant laws and what Pennsylvania’s current district map looks like.
STEM Politics
The reason to vote can feel very obvious to a lot of majors, especially the humanities. But what about STEM? How does tech, science, business, and engineering show up in politics? The guide below explain why it’s so important that people in STEM vote, and how your careers align and engage with politics on many levels.
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Resources: Creating a Culture of Civic Engagement in STEM | The Science and Civics Guide
Indigenous Civic Rights
Because of the goals of colonization, unique forms of oppression, and conflict between American nationhood and tribal sovereignty, Native Americans had to fight hard to get the right to vote in the U.S., far past the 15th Amendment. Today, Indigenous people face a number of barriers to not only exercising their voting right, but also having the right to self-govern and recognition by the U.S. government. This PowerPoint presentation explains the history behind the Native right to vote and offers tools to understand how colonization still impacts the entire country today.
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