DC Grand Challenge First-Year Seminar: Voting: An American Tradition

Catalog description

This course investigates the sacred American practice of voting, the cornerstone of American democracy, using the 2020 election cycle as our laboratory. The course uses a multi-disciplinary approach, examining the topic from several different perspectives. We'll investigate social movements to expand the vote, the role of technology, game theory, polling, predictions, electoral mapping, social media, the structures of American governance, and more. Questions include: What is the electoral college? Who gets to vote and why? How well is that vote accounted for? How can voting systems be compromised? Why is it so hard to predict who will win? How do people make decisions? How useful are polling and amp; predictions? What disrupts voting? Why is turnout so low? How does money play a role in the election cycle? Why do we vote the way we do? How is social media changing elections? What are global best practices? Did the founders even intend for a mass democracy? (The answer is no!) Many of you will be first-time, eligible voters in one of the most remarkable presidential campaigns in American history. We'll build your skills as new democratic citizens, of this nation or others, and help you make sense of the history-making U.S. news cycle. A note on partisanship: All political viewpoints are welcome in this class. This is a course on how we navigate and account for political difference in a diverse, disparate nation. This is something we'll practice in class, while we will also study that very process across the nation.