Make It Count: A complete guide to our generation's most consequential election

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Election 2020

How the voting process alienates transgender and gender nonconforming people
By Tracey Anne Duncan
I identify as a nonbinary femme. For me, that means that, while the way I present myself is generally read as “feminine,” I don’t think of myself as either male or female. But I experience a lot of cis privilege. I read as “female,” and the gender…
Ignore the polls and get out the vote
By Anjali Enjeti
Welcome to Ballot Barriers, Mic's weekly voting column for the 2020 election. Each week we'll explore the challenge of voting in an election year that's unlike any other. Twelve days before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton had a 6-point lead in…
5 first-time voters of color explain what's driving them to the polls
By Vanessa Taylor
With less than a month to go, the 2020 presidential election is shaping up to be one that will stand out in political memory for some time. It's not simply the Democratic push to remove President Trump from office following years of critique of his…
With Barrett's confirmation, minority rule threatens the majority of us
By Jacqui Germain
Welp. With a Senate vote of 52-48 on Monday evening, Amy Coney Barrett was officially confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States. She was sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas, a fellow Republican appointee with a controversial confirmation…
New research shows a surprising link between coronavirus and vitamin D
By Joseph Lamour
This pandemic has put many of us through all seven stages of grief this year. We’ve traveled from the initial shock all the way back in spring to our acceptance of the new normal, which unfortunately means a lot of canceled summer trips. It’s pretty…
Sacha Baron Cohen tells Colbert how the Borat sequel almost turned deadly
By Shawn Cooke
It’s remarkable enough that Borat Subsequent Moviefilm would hit streaming 14 years after the first movie’s release, but Sacha Baron Cohen’s sequel went ahead and became the most talked-about movie of the year. Maybe this was inevitable: something…
These musicians formed a union to demand fair pay from streamers like Spotify
By Kara Weisenstein
Thom Yorke once famously called Spotify “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse.” I don’t know about that. The world’s most popular music streamer made $7.3 billion in revenue in 2019, though to be fair only $1.8 billion of that was gross profit.…
What's up with the massive explosion of coronavirus-themed video games?
By Mark Hay
In early April, as many Americans were still coming to grips with the scale and severity of the coronavirus pandemic, Beat the Bomb, an “immersive video game company,” released Fauci’s Revenge. It’s a simple Space Invaders-style shooter, but with…
The Trump administration is hiding studies that show renewable energy could help save the planet
By AJ Dellinger
This was the first year on record in which the United States produced more electricity from renewable energy sources than from coal. The landmark accomplishment happened despite the Trump administration doing nearly everything in its power to set…
We still need to see doctors remotely, so why are insurers cutting off coverage?
By Jennifer A. Mallow and Steve Davis
In less than a year, telehealth has gone from a niche rarity to a common practice. Its ability to ensure physical distance, preserve personal protective equipment and prevent the spread of infection among health care workers and patients has been…
Early voting lines are blocks long across the country. What's going on?
By Anjali Enjeti
Welcome to Ballot Barriers, Mic's weekly voting column for the 2020 election. Each week we'll explore the challenge of voting in an election year that's unlike any other. We’ve had four years to prepare for the most crucial presidential election in…
7 political comedians that are making this election almost tolerable
By Shawn Cooke
If you remember the immediate aftermath of President Trump’s electoral win in 2016, there was a small chorus of onlookers who were thrilled about the great political comedy headed our way. At least in the mainstream, this didn’t happen. Still the…
SCOTUS sides with Republicans in limiting mail-in ballots in Wisconsin, a key battleground state
By Ray Levy-Uyeda
Wisconsin voters need their mail-in ballots to arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted, the Supreme Court decided late Monday. The high court refused to take up Democrats' challenge to a lower court ruling that denied voters a buffer of six…
The Trump campaign's love of rallies caused 3 coronavirus outbreaks in Minnesota
By Vanessa Taylor
Campaigning for re-election in the middle of a pandemic should require some innovation. But for President Trump, his campaign rallies have been business as usual, with people crowded together and hardly a mask in sight. Now, attendees are paying the…
The world shut down for coronavirus. Why didn't it have an affect on climate change?
By Scott Archer-Nicholls and James Weber
Countries across the world took unprecedented action in the first few months of 2020 to control the spread of COVID-19. At its peak, one-third of the world’s population was in lockdown. Around the world, car travel fell by 50%, the number of flights…
Here's what it would look like if America actually prioritized voting
By Jacqui Germain
This year, anything and everything voting-related has been intensified by the reality that we may finally be able to vote out the crisis of democracy that is the current presidential administration. The amount of marketing and publicity around voter…
Growers versus showers: A scientific penis investigation
By Joseph Lamour
On my regular virtual happy hour with friends, the flow of conversation — and liquor — inevitably leads to oversharing. Last week, one of my friends (we’ll call him Roger) bragged about how he was a “grower,” — which is someone whose penis looks…
Investigation finds Ford and GM knew about climate change in the 1960s
By AJ Dellinger
Transportation, particularly personal vehicles, is responsible for a significant portion of the carbon emissions that pour into the atmosphere and contribute to human-caused climate change. We now know that consumer cars and trucks are responsible…
I love this spooky friendship between a human child and a skeleton
By Kara Weisenstein
Pandemic times are tough. A lot of us have been feeling really lonely for most of the past year. While solitude can certainly have its upsides, sometimes it’s hard not to envy people with a “pandemic buddy,” you know? One small child understands…
Prisons are a public health crisis, the American Public Health Association says
By Ray Levy-Uyeda
Typically, calls for decarceration — investing in schools and public housing instead of prisons or practicing restorative justice — from activists and grassroots organizations are seen by policy makers as lofty aspirations rather than realistic…
Chipotle’s new tool lets you track the environmental impact of your burrito
By Tebany Yune
On Monday, Chipotle launched a sustainability tracker called Real Foodprint. The tracker calculates the impact of your order based on five metrics: less carbon in the atmosphere, water saved, improved soil health, supported organic land, and…
John Oliver highlights all the ways Trump is incredibly cruel to asylum seekers
By Shawn Cooke
In one of his final Last Week Tonight episodes before the election, John Oliver shifted his focus to President Trump’s relentless attacks on asylum seekers. While he’s dedicated a number of segments to Trump’s immigration policy, from family…
How a racist algorithm kept Black patients from getting kidney transplants
By AJ Dellinger
In recent years, doctors have started to lean on algorithms when determining certain aspects of patient treatments. While these systems are designed to take into account information like medical test results and risk factors facing certain people,…