Foley Institute

Emerging threats to the pillars of liberal democracies, such as checks and balances, prompted the Foley Institute to select the topic for this fall’s lecture series.

This year’s Foley Distinguished Public Service Award presentation honoring former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta is now available to watch online.

The Thomas S. Foley Award for Distinguished Public Service is awarded annually to those who demonstrate integrity, courage and impact in public service.

With continuing misinformation about U.S. elections, WSU’s Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Service is part of a national effort to help educate and inform voters about the reliability of democratic self-governing.

The careful work that goes into creating, distributing, and accurately counting ballots is carried out by local election workers whose efforts begin long before Election Day.

In addition to collecting, securing, and tabulating millions of ballots, election workers face an additional obstacle: a rising tide of harassment and threats of violence.

How states administer elections and the laws that govern those processes impact how quickly results are known as well as perceptions of the validity of elections.

While the federal government has stepped in at key moments, elections administration largely falls to states and the counties therein. As a result, there are significant differences in how individuals register to vote, their options for voting, and when localities can begin to count ballots submitted by mail.

The two candidates seeking to represent Washington’s 5th Congressional District will face off in a debate hosted by WSU’s Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service.

From radical partisanship to the role of race and gender in upcoming elections, this fall’s Foley Institute speaker series is bringing experts to weigh in on important topics leading up to Election Day.