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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.
During a hearing of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, empty seats commemorate the five activists killed on Nov. 3, 1979. Photo: RobinAKirk / CC BY 2.0
On Oct. 6, 2020, the Greensboro City Council adopted a resolution of apology acknowledging that the 1979 Greensboro police department “failed to warn the marchers of their extensive foreknowledge of the racist, violent attack planned against the marchers by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party with the assistance of a paid GPD informant.”
U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett arrives to continue the second day of her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via REUTERS
President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett said on Tuesday at her U.S. Senate confirmation hearing she is not hostile to the Obamacare law, as Democrats have suggested, and declined to specify whether she believes landmark rulings legalizing abortion and gay marriage were properly decided.
Rev. David Beckmann, president emeritus of Bread for the World, offers a word on world hunger in advance of the 2020 election.
Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the vice presidential campaign debate on October 7, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
This week’s picks from our editors include a little bit of humor (a new film that satirizes evangelical media? Yes please!) and stories to remind us of our collective power to overcome the forces of evil and enemies of justice that are so readily on display.
The White House before dawn after President Donald Trump announced that he and U.S. first lady Melania Trump have both tested positive for COVID-19. Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
“Schadenfreude,” the German term for “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others,” became the most searched-for term today on Merriam-Webster.com. But “enjoyment” isn’t the right word for this week in which civil discourse and the U.S. refugee resettlement quotas reached another record low.
As news spread that Donald and Melania Trump have contracted COVID-19, thoughts, prayers, and tweets have started pouring in from across the U.S.
People participating in the protest march against President Trump's immigration laws in Manhattan in New York City, Jan. 29, 2017. Photo by Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com
The Trump administration said on Wednesday it intends to allow only 15,000 refugees to resettle in the United States in the 2021 fiscal year, setting another record low in the history of the modern refugee program.
Pune-based pastor and social worker Sagai Nair prays for a COVID-19 victim. Photo courtesy Manish Patil
Death does not scare Sagai Nair. She lowers the deceased into coffin boxes, carries them by foot to the graveyard with five other volunteers, uses a shovel to dig six feet inside the earth, and recites verses from the Bible for the grieving families. After paying her last respects, she burns her protective gear, sanitizes herself, and prepares for the next burial. In a coronavirus hotspot, 47-year-old Nair is the only woman in India burying the dead—a traditionally male-dominated occupation.