Author: Sofia Little

Election Day is Not the Only Day to Vote

Posted on by Sofia Little

October 24th is Vote Early Day, meant to encourage all eligible United States citizens to vote early and inform voters of their states’ early voting laws.

Early voting offers many voters the convenience and flexibility that match the demands of modern life. It can be especially helpful for people with demanding work schedules, long commutes, caregiving responsibilities or travel plans. For many, the option to vote early can make the difference between casting a ballot and missing the opportunity.

According to the Center for Election and Research (CEIR) nearly 97% of voting-age citizens live in states that offer at least one way to vote before Election Day.

However, access to the ballot remains a concern ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The Trump administration has deployed a wide variety of intensified voter suppression tactics in an attempt to interfere with the 2026 midterm elections. These tactics range from plans to place federal officials at polling stations and an executive order targeting mail voting. Courts have blocked aspects of the administration’s mail voting order from taking effect.

The impact of these voter suppression maneuvers often harm communities of color. Strict voter ID laws and fewer polling locations in certain areas disproportionately affect voters of color, leading to longer wait times on Election Day and discriminatory intimidation tactics at these locations. 

Joyce Vance, a Brennan Center senior fellow and former federal prosecutor, emphasized the importance of protecting voting rights in an interview. “Who you vote for, that’s a political decision. But the right to vote should be something fundamental that everybody in government works to guarantee for all Americans.” 

Despite these threats, early voting methods remain secure and convenient ways to participate in the democratic principles our country was founded on. Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, discussed these challenges in remarks about the role of the courts in protecting voting rights. 

Perryman concludes with a request: “The lawyers will file these cases, but people have to be vigilant about their voter registration and about their plan to vote. That is what we need the American people to do.” 

So, here are a few reasons why you should vote early:

  • You avoid the long lines of Election Day.
  • It can be more logistically convenient than Election Day voting.
  • It reduces the strain on polling locations on Election Day. 
  • You don’t have to worry about any unforeseen circumstances on Election Day (the weather, flat tire, illness, etc).
  • It leads to greater election security as it creates more opportunity for polling officials to counteract any issues that might arise, such as a machine breakdown, any threats of voter suppression, human error, and more. 
  • It narrows the opportunity for claims of a ‘rigged’ election.’

For the 2026 general election, 47 states and Washington DC will offer all voters the opportunity to vote early in person, with 37 of those states also offering voters the option to vote by mail without the need to cite a reason. Encourage your friends and family to use this opportunity to practice your constitutional right in upholding democracy.

Check your state’s rules and deadlines before making a plan. For voter registration information, election dates and voting resources, visit Vote411.org/feminist. Election Day is the last day to vote, but it is not the only day to vote.

The Cornell 57: How Educational Institutions Fail Women

Posted on by Sofia Little

Note: This article contains discussions of rape and sexual assault. If you or someone you have experienced sexual violence, help is available 24/7. Contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline or call 1-800-656-4673.

On the night of October 19, 2024, a 20-year old Cornell University undergraduate student, identified as Jane Doe in court filings and media reports, went to the Chi Phi Fraternity house believing she was going to meet a friend. In a civil lawsuit filed in September 2026, Doe alleges that she was drugged and sexually assaulted by seven men over the course of several hours.

These are who the media have coined the ‘Cornell 7’: Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar. The men have been accused of sexually assaulting Jane Doe, but they have not been criminally charged in connection with the allegations. 

According to screenshots and video of the Snapchat group chat, named “Chi Phi Actives, obtained by CBS News, Newell described Jane Doe as ‘free p*ssy,’ while Ingalls wrote, ‘you can walk in and whip it out.’ Later, another fraternity brother asked whether the “shop” was still open, when referring to Jane Doe, and received an affirmative response. 

The group chat reportedly included roughly 50 other members. No messages in the screenshots obtained by CBS show anyone in the group chat intervening, normalizing the behavior. The group chat raises broader questions about the conduct of the 50 men who received messages about Jane Doe that night—not just the seven men named as defendants.

Jane Doe reported the incident to the Cornell Police Department on November 8th, 2024. Cornell subsequently suspended the Xi chapter of the Chi Phi fraternity, and the seven defendants while internal university investigations ensued. 

Jane Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, has said that investigators from the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office had little contact with her and that she was not interviewed by investigators trained to work with rape survivors. Ultimately, the case was closed due to ‘insufficient evidence,’ without a single criminal charge being filed.   

Instead, as Giuffra told CBS News, of the seven men that were accused, only two were expelled, while others received lesser sanctions including suspensions, workshops, or essays.

These allegations of sexual violence and institutional failures are not simply a result of 7 men, or even 57 men. This is a result of an established system of power designed to prioritize the wants and needs of men at the expense of women’s livelihood. 

This phenomenon has been described as institutional betrayal. In her book, On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence, researcher Nicole Bedera examines how institutions can create additional harm when they fail to respond appropriately to sexual violence. Researchers have similarly documented the psychological consequences of institutional betrayal among survivors of sexual violence.

The Cornell case is not the first time a university’s response to sexual assault has faced national scrutiny.

In 2014, student Emma Sulkowicz from Columbia University carried a mattress around campus to protest the university’s handling of her allegation of sexual assault and in 2015, Chanel Miller was sexually assaulted on Stanford’s campus, with her assaulter only serving three months in prison before being released for good behavior. Over a decade later, little has changed. 

Universities have a responsibility to investigate allegations of sexual violence and provide survivors with meaningful avenues for reporting and support. When institutions fail to do so, survivors can be left navigating both the consequences of the assault and the consequences of the institution’s response.

The Cornell case has brought those questions back into public view. On September 14, 2026, Jane Doe filed a 101-page civil lawsuit against Cornell University, the Chi Phi fraternity organization, and the seven defendants. The lawsuit accuses Cornell of failing to adequately protect her and of mishandling its response to the allegations. The defendants have the opportunity to respond to the allegations in court.

The lawsuit and public outrage has prompted District Attorney Matthew van Houten to reopen the case. But it should not take this much pressure to secure justice. Accountability must extend beyond the individual perpetrators to the system and cultures that allow sexual violence to go unaddressed.

Get the Flock Out

Posted on by Sofia Little

On September 23rd, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism held a hearing titled “Always Watching: Flock’s Nationwide AI Surveillance Network,” examining the privacy risks, data sharing, and misuse of private automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks. 

The hearing was chaired by Sen. Hawley (R-MO) and featured five witnesses, including Lindsey Isaacs, a wrongfully accused driver, Alasdair Whitney from Legislative Counsel Institute for Justice, Sheriff Ross Teeple, Benn Jordan, a self-proclaimed “hacker”, and policy counsel analyst Chad Marlow from the ACLU, where they have coined a campaign called “Get the Flock Out.” 

The hearing highlighted pertinent concerns about how ALPR technology can be used and shared. Public concern about Flock cameras has also grown in recent months. A September 2026 Navigator Research survey found that 62% of registered voters were concerned about Flock camera use, including 66% of Democrats, 55% of Republicans, and 70% of Independents. 

Flock Safety was founded in 2017 by CEO Garrett Langley, operating as a small startup meant to provide ALPR cameras to homeowners associations and neighborhoods looking to reduce petty theft and local property crimes. Now, it has grown into something alarmingly dystopian: an AI powered network of over 120,000 cameras across 49 states that photograph, scan, tag, and log every driver that passes, whether or not they are suspected of any crime.

License plate reader technologies have existed since the 1970s, in the form of speed, toll, and red-light cameras. These are only triggered by a specific action, such as running a red-light or driving through a toll booth, and only track license plate numbers. The entry of venture capitalist funding and advanced AI technology into the mass surveillance industry has transformed these automatic traffic enforcement cameras into a complex web of invasive surveillance tools. 

During the hearing, ACLU’s Mr. Chad Marlow argued that companies operating ALPR systems are profiting from the collection and sharing of information about people’s movements. The ACLU has called for greater limits on how ALPR data can be collected, accessed, and shared. 

Privacy concerns extend to how ALPR data can affect people seeking reproductive health care.  During the hearing, Sen. Booker (D-NJ) raised concerns that states could use ALPR technology to track people traveling to obtain reproductive care. The concern comes amid documented cases of law enforcement using vehicle surveillance systems to investigate people seeking or suspected of seeking abortion care. 

Unfortunately, this ‘hypothetical’ scenario has become the reality for women across the country.

Witnesses Alaster Whitney and Sheriff Ross Teeple both testified about the overreach of Flock’s ALPRs, with Whitney highlighting jurisdiction concerns which police officers have already been accused of taking advantage of. 

In Texas, a sheriff’s deputy used 83,000 Flock ALPRs to track a woman who allegedly performed a self-administered abortion, at the behest of her abusive partner. In Massachusetts, a police officer used Flock networks to stalk a former romantic partner who said she had changed her identity to escape from his abuse. In Kentucky, a police officer was accused of searching his child’s mother 1,000 times through Flock’s network, though she has a protective order. The Institute for Justice has catalogued more than 200 incidents of these ALPR abuses, including romantic stalking, wrongful stops and detentions, non-law enforcement use and other types of misconduct.  

These encroachments do not just stop here, as Sen. Padilla (D-CA) spotlights the use of loopholes within Flock, which ICE officers take advantage of to track immigrant communities. While Flock has guaranteed no direct access to the Border Patrol subagency, Witness Marlow points out all it takes is one sympathetic person connected to ICE for the agency to obtain access to billions of pictures of citizens, including facial properties.

Concerns about ALPR surveillance have crossed traditional political lines. During the hearing, Sen. Hawley noted that supporters of the Second Amendment have “long feared national databases of any kind.” This has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum highlighting the bipartisan opposition. 

While Flock operates as a leading company which produces ALPRs, they are not the sole producers. Companies like Axon and Motorola have slowly begun increasing outputs as Flock cameras have gotten more attention and dissent. Amid Flock’s controversy, many cities like Denver are publicly terminating their Flock contracts only to quietly replace them with Axon.

Witness Mr. Benn Jordan, a self proclaimed “hacker” testified on finding 65 security vulnerabilities within Flock’s system, exposing the missing security settings needed to protect data from both national and international threats. Following this testimony, Witness Jordan urged the Senate to “…create clear, effective, and unified federal privacy laws on par with the GDPR [the General Data Protection Regulation of the EU].”

Jordan concludes his statement: “ALPRs are used all over the world, but viewing license plates as personal data with modern privacy guardrails would have prevented nearly every single problem that we are learning about in this hearing. This is an opportunity for Congress to build the overdue framework to protect the privacy of Americans for generations to come.”

A Restraining Order Is Not Enough When an Abuser Has a Gun

Posted on by Sofia Little

October 1st marks the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a month dedicated to bringing attention to domestic violence and supporting efforts to prevent it. Domestic violence can include physical violence, sexual violence, stalking and psychological aggression. These forms of violence affect millions of Americans each year, with perpetrators often being current or former intimate partners. More than one in three U.S. women experience a form of domestic violence in their lifetime. 

On September 16, 2026, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) released a report titled, “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2024 Homicide Data.” In 2024, nearly 2,400 women were killed by men, and of these, 86.9% knew their killer—nearly nine out of 10. Firearms were used in 63.4% of these homicides. 

Albeit widespread, affecting women across racial and ethnic groups and socioeconomic status, domestic violence disproportionately affects historically marginalized groups. Although Black women only make up 14.1% of the women in the United States, 30.3% of women killed by men in single victim/single offender incidents were Black. 

Between January 2019 and April 2021, an estimated 7.5 million Americans purchased firearms for the first time. Congruently, intimate partner violence (IPV) related homicides rose dramatically from 2014 to 2020, with a 58% increase in deaths. When an abusive partner has access to a gun, a domestic violence victim is five times more likely to be killed. 

Similar to intimate partner violence, firearm violence is a gendered issue. Men are significantly more likely to purchase firearms than women, with the majority of gun owners being white men. 

VPC’s Government Affairs Director Kristen Rand states, “The proliferation of guns only exacerbates the problem, escalating domestic abuse into domestic homicides.” 

The connection between firearms and intimate partner violence has also shaped federal law. The Gun Control Act of 1968 was the first legislation linking IPV and gun violence, barring firearm possession to convicted domestic violence felons. However, it was not until the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 in which federal lawmakers began taking these dangers seriously and putting more measures in place to begin the actual enforcement and prosecution of these felons. 

However, federal protections have not covered every abusive relationship. The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act expanded the federal firearm prohibition to certain people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence against dating partners who do not live with them or share a child. The provision is subject to several limitations, including a five-year restoration period for certain first-time dating-partner convictions. These gaps matter. 

For far too long, gun violence and domestic violence has been dismissed as two separate issues. They must be examined as two interwoven public health crises. A lack of gun reform harms everyone, but it is women who bear the brunt of that impact. Efforts to address firearm violence must center the voices of women, particularly Black women and other communities disproportionately affected by intimate partner violence. Gun policy makers have historically excluded these voices, and while there has been major strides to improve the current legislation, there is still a long way to go. 

If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic or intimate partner violence, help is available 24/7. Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788.

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