Home  About  Chapters  Policy  Publications  Join  Jobs  Donate  Blog  University of Michigan Roosevelt members at the Roosevelt Relief: Hurricane Katrina Launch Event 2007 News from the National Office Post-Election Center TI Launched Roosevelt LiveBlogs the Presidential Debate On Campus Midwest Regional Fall Policy Workshop Blum speaks at Vermont Campus Compact conference Coverage of the Johns Hopkins Chapter Launch > More "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing." — Teddy Roosevelt    Making Democracy Work > Roosevelt Home > Roosevelt Challenges > Making Democracy Work Your name: Your email: Recipient's name: Recipient's email: Message: To prevent spam, please enter the first letter of the recipient's email and the first letter of the recipient's name in the box below (for example, if the name is "John Doe" and the email is "bigjohn@johndoe.com", you would enter "jb"): 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 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