Home  About  In the News  Publications  Blog  Join  Donate  The Roosevelt Institution headquarters in Washington D.C. summer office 2007. Photos by Nick Bradley. Announcements National Expo: July 11th Hyde Park Summit: August 14-17 Essay Winners Announced in The Nation On Campus Iowa Chapter Holds Forum Zach Hindin in the GW Hatchet Coverage of the Johns Hopkins Chapter Launch > More "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." — Teddy Roosevelt    Making Democracy Work > Roosevelt Home > Roosevelt Challenges > Making Democracy Work By Kyle Atwell Categories: Fair and clean politics, Voting rights The Challenge: explore campaign finance and voting mechanisms that ensure democracy is fair and works for everybody, everywhere. Important Progressive: accomplishing this challenge will contribute directly and specifically to the progressive values embodied by Roosevelt's Statement of Principles Meaningful: our contribution to this challenge will produce a real change in the lives of our fellow human beings. One can imagine a world in which the challenge is solved, and such a world is better than the one we live in today. Relevant: the challenge is relevant to the social contract project that Roosevelt has embarked upon Comments Kyle Atwell, Sun 8 Jul 10:33 pm PST: To expand on this idea, it could cover both local campaign finance and voter laws, as well as issues concerning international democracy development and US democracy promotion efforts. Example issues include increasing voter turnout, ensuring fair campaign finance laws, ensuring fair and free elections everywhere, mitigating voter disenfranchisement, establishing smart term limits at both the state and federal level, and much more. Kyle Atwell, Sun 8 Jul 11:05 pm PST: Also, I noticed that two other people proposed "Enfranchising the Disenfranchised", which deals with increasing voter turnout. This is a similar proposal, but allows for a broader range of issues to be presented, and I also think the name "Making Democracy Work" is more self-explanatory Paul B Burow, Mon 9 Jul 12:21 am PST: I think we should rework the wording of the challenge, but its a great idea... Nicholas R Santos, Mon 9 Jul 1:39 am PST: I think that this is a great topic. I am likely a bit biased because my research is on voter disenfranchisement and voting systems, but I think it's something that between the various facets, could certainly produce 25 ideas Patrick M Reimherr, Mon 9 Jul 4:32 pm PST: I agree with rewording the name of the challenge. This challenge does allow for a lot of freedom for students to show innovation. Kirti Datla, Tue 10 Jul 11:52 am PST: This is a timely and important topic that seems to give students the flexibility to think about different levels of government and to think outside the typical party structures. Kai H Stinchcombe, Fri 27 Jul 6:40 pm PST: See http://rooseveltinstitution.org/challenges/62_making_democracy_work for my update with fuller language   The Roosevelt Institution is a nonpartisan, nonprofit national think tank devoted to bringing students' policy ideas to the policy process. The opinions expressed on this site are exclusively those of its members. DC Headquarters: Roosevelt Institution / 2100 M St NW Suite 610 / Washington, DC 20037 || (202) 833-1359