ABOUT COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS: Community Connections is a lesson collection designed for adult learners and community colleges, with the goal of inspiring student civic action. This might be respectful debate or conversation about a local issue, planning a community event, or a creative project that helps connect local, national and global issues.
To use this lesson: First, watch the video and answer the questions below as a warm up. Next, choose one or more of the activities under "Take Action" that best fits your classroom. Or, use the segment above to inspire your own original classroom activities — the spirit of these lessons is to connect current events to actions that make your community a better place for everyone!
SUMMARY
How the parties select their candidates is a major factor in the increasing partisanship we've seen in recent years. Recently, Alaska has been trying something different. It's already showing results but facing some resistance. Judy Woodruff traveled there for her ongoing series about divisions in the country, America at a Crossroads.
View the transcript of the story.
WARM-UP QUESTIONS
- What state is featured in the segment?
- Who is Mary Peltola?
- How is Alaska's primary system unique?
- When did Alaska's new primary system go into effect?
- Why does Nick Troiano say that "8 percent of voters [are] electing 83 percent of our leaders"?
FOCUS QUESTIONS
In the segment, some argue that open primaries help bring more voters into the electoral process and moderate partisan politics. However, von Spakovsky says that only the members of the Democratic and Republican parties should have a say in their respective representatives. Who do you find more convincing? Do you think open primaries are a good reform to the electoral system?
Media literacy: The NewsHour video starts with an interview with David Nicolai, who talked about how his family experienced Peltola's historic election to Congress. How do personal stories such as Nicolai's impact your thoughts on the electoral reforms, if at all?
Alternative: See, Think, Wonder: What did you notice? What did the story make you think? What would you want to learn more about?
TAKE ACTION
Use the focus question above and this activity to debate closed, ranked choice and open primaries. You may want to divide the class into three parts and assign each group one system to defend.
Then discuss — what system is used in your state or region? After carefully considering points made in the debate, which system do you think your state should adopt?
Take a look at this explainer to learn more about ranked-choice voting.
- Do you think our current electoral system needs reform? What do you think are the advantages and challenges of ranked-choice voting?
- What resources could you use to learn more about research and campaigns about electoral reforms? For example, check out https://fairvote.org/.
This project was funded under the 2024 Leonore Annenberg Civic Mission of the Nation Initiative, sponsored by the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics. LAIC is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
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