There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #50: Hundreds more!

Every method of nonviolent action can be a method of participating in democracy. Gene Sharp, in his 1973 opus, listed 198 methods[1]. As a major update, Michael Beer produced a greatly expanded list of essentially double that in his monograph Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century[2]. 

Just a few of those additional tactics since 1973, from the Beer collection (2021, pp. 87-88): 

·       Expressive Tactics Using Medium of Electronic Communication

·       RECORDING & DISTRIBUTING NEWS OF NVA

·       Livestreaming: The live public broadcasting of an event, incident, or protest

·       Short form digital video: A brief video detailing the issue that people are protesting for/against

·       Social media photo campaign: Promoting a particular image through social media platforms (for example, changing profile pictures)

·       Database leaks: Releasing entire digital archives of secret/classified materials in order to educate the public and/or increase awareness

·       CROWDSOURCING INFORMATION

·       Sousveillance: Covert surveillance by citizens, frequently of authorities

·       Maps and maptivism: Using maps, typically digital ones, to crowdsource data or information

·       Digital file sharing applications: Peer-to-peer file-sharing (uTorrent, etc.)

·       CREATING ONLINE DIGITAL CONTENT

·       Blogging/writing/commenting/tweeting: Creating online written content that addresses particular issues, which is especially useful if it is too dangerous to speak out or protest in person

·       Digital video and audio art: Using media forms such as videos, photos, photos of art, digital art, animations, and silent videos to protest/appeal

·       Digital games: Digital games that are used to criticize opponents and their ideas or to model a new behavior or institution

·       FALSE, IMAGINARY INFORMATION

·       Creating faux identities, websites, videos:

·       Creating some kind of hoax or fake information that is intended to mock opponents and/or shock the public

·       Mockumentaries: A documentary that uses humor and parody to mock an opponent or issue

·       Mock documents (government forms): Constructing mock documents or forms for use by the public

·       Deliberately fake money: Creating false currency that can be used to combat corruption, spread awareness about the issue, etc.

·       MASS ACTION

·       SMS/email/social media bombing: Using text messaging, email, or social media functions to send messages en masse to a target

·       Forwarding information, retweeting, re-posting, sharing: Sharing information and raising awareness through social media or other messaging systems

·       Trend a hashtag: Using a social media platform’s hashtag feature to call attention to an issue or event (#)

·       Influencing Internet search engines: Changing the results of a search engine for a specific term/person 

·       “Nonviolently ‘hijacking’ social media”: Hacking, posting on, exposing, and/or disabling the social media accounts of an opponent

·       Social media “challenges”: Using social media to call others to action on a mass scale

·       Solidarity telethon: Mass calls to spread information and solidarity 

·       Product review hijacking: Negatively or positively mass-reviewing a product

One perspective of all these ways to participate in democracy is that if there are hundreds of ways to do so and many more waiting some creative innovative activist to develop, it negates the entire Just War Doctrine because one of the criteria for engaging in war is that it must be the last resort. No war in human history was preceded by 198 different attempts to resolve a conflict or defend a people, let alone more than 300 of them. Peace, nonviolence, and democracy are all woven together much more advantageously than violence and democracy. In effect, creative, strategic nonviolence is the new arsenal of democracy.

References

Beer, Michael A. (2021). Civil resistance tactics in the 21st century. ICNC. 

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[1] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/

[2] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/civil-resistance-tactics-in-the-21st-century/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #49: Be a citizen journalist

 The young woman who is independently streaming video at a public event is a citizen journalist. Is she an effective influencer? Sometimes. The idea that the quality of a citizen journalist's output is 100 percent quantifiable is clearly not true when one photo changes public policy. 

Mid-19th century photos of Yellowstone drove the votes in Congress, for example, to create the first United States National Park in 1871 and all the protections it afforded so Americans could enjoy the park in perpetuity. 

Even earlier, says the Save the Redwoods League[1]:

Photographers and painters began connecting people to redwoods decades earlier, beginning with Carleton Watkins’ giant sequoia photographs from the 1850s. At the height of the Civil War, these photos helped inspire President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress to protect Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove, in part as an antidote to the war’s horrors.

Whatever the social media platform, there are elements that are participatory in democracy, whether it's documentation, opinion, or simply sharing what inspires you to make society a better place. 

Ask Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian who, in 2010, saw a horrific photo of a fellow countryman beaten to death by Egyptian police. He started a FaceBook page and it went massively viral, helping to launch the Egyptian Arab Spring on the heels of the first Arab Spring uprising, in Tunisia. 

Citizen journalism is a challenge to mainstream journalism, though it can helpfully supplement it when both are well done. Like all the tools we have with which to participate in democracy, it can be used to build or to harm.

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[1] https://www.savetheredwoods.org/blog/forest/the-power-of-photography-connection-and-conservation/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #48: Work for a think tank

Yeah, like most other ways to participate in democracy, this could hurt democracy, and it has. Far rightwing, well-funded think tanks such as the white nationalist, racist, anti-democracy Claremont Institute have been doing that for decades (Stewart, 2023). 

So we need think tanks from the pro-democracy, peace and justice perspective. Indeed, arguably, that needs to happen more broadly more urgently because once a government becomes autocratic, the range of think tank orientation shifts, as it exists, for instance, in Russia, where think tanks either assume a decidedly pro-Russian government stance or they tend to geopoliticize issues rather than acknowledge domestic problems (Axyonova, 2024).

Think tanks generally do not produce much honestly peer-reviewed material since most have a more serious drive toward publishing white papers and monographs exploring the issues in their mission, and the issues that funders prefer explored. This doesn't invalidate their output, but it tends to set a perspective that should inform anyone studying and citing their research findings. 

Most valuable are the innovative ideas created and explained by think tank researchers. For example, the studies funded in total or in part by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) have been and continue to be instrumental in disseminating and proliferating usable knowledge on strategic nonviolent methods of effective political action, institutional policy challenges, and corporate accountability. They have translated select resources--documentary films, webinars, monographs, and more into the languages that can benefit democracy and nonviolent change. Their resource library[1], freely available online, is peerless. 

A serious problem about think tanks is that they are frequently funded by wealthy family foundations and those family foundations may tend to be quite right-leaning, politically. The exceptions are wonderful but in the end, the intellectual labor toward peace, democracy, nonviolence, and justice is most frequently done on a pro bono basis or tiny royalty-based supplemental income. Like so many other pro-democracy initiatives, we have to learn to do more and more with less and less until we can achieve almost anything with practically nothing. Freedom is a labor of love.

References

Axyonova, V. (2024). Responding to crises in authoritarian environments: Russian think tanks between policy evaluation and state endorsement. Review of Policy Research, 41(6), 941–960. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1111/ropr.12601

Stewart, K. (2023). The Anti-Democracy Think Tank. New Republic, 254(9), 10–21.

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[1] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource-library/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #47: Make videos

 Making a video used to be a daunting task indeed. You'd need an expensive camera, special software to edit, and likely some professional help. Back in the actual 70mm or 35mm film day with no SIM card or online options it was even more prohibitive. 

Now you can do a Zoom session, record it, and post it on YouTube. You can create your own YouTube channel, which can even monetize your creative work even as you make videos that participate in democracy.

Yes, you can make it fancier and more appealing with all the above helpers--great editing software, professional assistance, and so forth.

Whatever you produce, consider making very short vids that people will actually watch to the finish. Do a series of three-minute videos rather than one 90-minute blockbuster that few will even start. Even better, do the long form plus break it down into discrete clips. 

In some ways, it's almost like a letter to the editor; make just one primary point, and make it succinctly with explosive intellectual entertainment value. If you do a Zoom, have a Powerpoint ready so you aren't just a talking head. Rip through 15-20 slides, at least, in three minutes. Start and finish with yourself. Do the Zooms until you are happy with the product or learn to edit the Zooms. Either way, post with power, with confidence, with a fast-moving alluring message. You will find your own style, your own voice, and you will be a more effective agent of change.

I will always love the answer given many years ago to an old movie director to a question about how he made films that were so successful: "I grab the viewer by the throat in the first 30 seconds and I never let go."

Your videos may be the trigger to action that saves democracy.

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #46: Build a pro-democracy coalition

Right now we are reeling from the onslaught of Trump's actions. To me, the key is exactly what you envision, getting involved, no matter how few hours we might have, and, whatever we are involved in, we are communicating our dissatisfaction with the harm that Trump is doing. That is step one, to me. 

Step two is getting the group we work with to declare that, as a group. 

Step three is to look for other groups to ally with. 

Step four is for the coalition to declare its opposition. When we have a "group of groups" we have power. We can start to show that power to ourselves and others and make it easier to get change. 

The ultimate step is to simply have such a huge coalition that we can credibly threaten a general strike. It is often helpful to simply do such a thing for a short time, just to prove the concept. If, for instance, the coalition was big enough and prepared enough to go on strike for a symbolic half day, that might show enough power to get Trump to start negotiating. A longer general strike would need serious commitment and preparation. 

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #45: Community radio

According to MyTuner.com[1] there are some 285 community radio stations in the US. As one community radio station in Wisconsin explains it[2]: 

"In 1946, a group of conscientious objectors formed The Pacifica Foundation, a media organization with the goal to build a nationwide network of non-commercial radio stations. They formed the first ‘listener-sponsored’ radio station in the United States, KPFA – Berkeley, in 1949."

Volunteers are trained in by professional employees and can host programs with themes that are in some way serving the public good, whether by political discussion or specialized cultural content or any number of other educational topical programs. 

For several years in the 1980s, I was a professional community organizer with two others in a small organization, Waging Peace, based in Hayward, Wisconsin. We hosted a three-hour peace and justice program on a nearby tribal station, WOJB (Wisconsin OJiBwe), on the Lac Court Oreilles Anishinaabe reservation. We interviewed a wide range of peace and justice activists, either in the station or via telephone (this was pre-Internet, pre-Zoom). The lead producer for the station, who was a paid professional who did pieces for other tribal stations and occasional pieces for NPR, trained us to run a simple radio program. All three of us were volunteers, as were many other hosts at the station. 

We were certainly participating in democracy when we broadcast interviews of a Green party candidate fresh back from Germany, who helped our listeners understand the Euromissile crisis in Germany that was driven by then-president Ronald Reagan's decision to deploy US nuclear weapons with a destabilizing first-strike capacity to US bases in Germany. 

Similarly, we promoted a far deeper understanding of the treaty rights of all the 14 bands of the Lake Superior Ojibwe by interviewing experts from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.

We sat with a Christian minister just back from apartheid South Africa to educate us and our listeners about conditions there, even as pressure was building in the US to boycott South Africa. 

In short, we helped broadcast many peace and justice programs to our listeners, virtually all of those programs educating our fellow citizens in matters under consideration in our local, state, and national democracy. 

This is what happens at those 285 stations around the US, and this is a robust element of our citizen-based democracy.

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[1] https://mytuner-radio.com/radio/country/united-states/genre/community-stations

[2] https://www.wdrt.org/community-radio/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #44: Be a librarian and support your librarians

When, in the aftermath of the terror attacks of 9.11.2001, the US government passed the USA PATRIOT Act and started invading the privacy of those who checked out library books, librarians rebelled and some refused to coöperate, based on the ethical obligation to protect the vast majority of innocent library patrons who shouldn't be swept up in some government investigation (Pace, 2004). It was a rare moment of the shift in image of librarians as quiet, even meek, servants of the people, to that of proud protectors of our civil rights.

And now comes the Christian nationalists, led by one of the least Christian US presidents in history, supporting book bans. Again, librarians are showing their mettle by openly opposing or refusing to do these un-American attacks on freedom of thought (Krutka, 2025).

Indeed, the American Library Association[1] is serious about fighting all forms of invasive censorship and provides resources to local libraries and librarians to support the brave resistance to those who would take away our rights. Supporting librarians who are under assault by book banners is a key participation in democracy.

References

Krutka, K. R. (2025). Counterstories as Resistance to Book Bans. Library Quarterly, 95(1), 58–78. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1086/733173

Pace, A. K. (2004). Toward a More Practical Patriotism. Computers in Libraries, 24(4), 19–21.

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[1] https://www.ala.org/advocacy/fight-censorship 

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #43: Boycott, divest, sanction

As with all methods of participating in democracy, BDS can be done in ways that produce more justice, more peace, and more democracy--or it can do the opposite. Like a hammer, BDS can build or it can be a weapon hurting people.

Boycotting goods or services is an age-old method of participating in democracy--economic democracy and political democracy. Not buying something is an individual freedom in virtually all societies. Certainly there are a few things you must purchase in order to engage in some activities; when I wanted to gather wild rice on public lakes in northern Wisconsin I needed to purchase a ricing permit, and without one the costs and consequences would have been pricey. 

But deciding that I don't want to buy a Nestles candy bar is my choice, with the only consequences being fewer cavities, more money in my pocket, and, as it happened for several years, a chance to impose a tiny cost on a company that was using shady scam practices in some impoverished countries--having people with no medical background dress as nurses and convincing poor people to spend their scant resources on Nestles powdered baby formula, rather than breastfeed their babies. 

Infact, an activist organization now called Corporate Accountability, launched the boycott[1] in 1977 and by 1984 we the people of the world who had been participating in that boycott won--a first on earth of a campaign forcing a globalized corporation to take serious policy reform based on action (or targeted inaction) of masses of consumers. 

Divestment simply means no purchase of any share of ownership in corporations that contribute in any way to harmful practice. Divesting from corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa put a great deal of pressure on the racist regime and contributed to the political decision to create a democracy there. Divestment in mining corporations that were doing great harm to mountains in the Southeastern US helped drive changes[2] in some environmental practices when financial institutions decided to stop loaning to some of the worst environmental actors because people were divesting from those banks to help drive those changes. Barclays, Wells Fargo, and other financial institutions all were financing bad environmental actors and all were targeted effectively and withdrew that financing. 

Sanctions are normally a governmental practice meant to punish bad actors--when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the Obama administration imposed sanctions, as did the Biden administration when Russia did it again years later. Iran is building nuclear weapons components and they supply Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis with weapons, so the US has been sanctioning Iran for years. The citizen input can be to engage in pressure on elected officials to sanction bad practices--pressure on the US government to sanction Israel over Palestinian civilian deaths has been less successful, but the success in many cases is proportional to the number of citizens making that demand. 

BDS is often referred to as the trifecta of economic measures available to promote or protect democracy. Anyone can participate at some level in one or more of these practices. 

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[1] https://corporateaccountability.org/blog/nestle-groundbreaking-boycott-saves-millions-of-infant-lives/

[2] https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2015/04/private-banks-ditching-destructive-coal-investments-international-financial

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #42: Go on strike!

Let's say your workplace does not allow unions. Unions afford workers, as a collective, to decide if and when to strike against an employer to seek redress, to demand more compensation, to insist on improved humane working conditions, to push employers to provide better benefits, and more. 

Ironically, then, workers sometimes have to go on strike to even force the employer to allow a worker vote on whether to unionize. 

All these elements on the job are a part of workplace democracy and the method is of course transferable to other environments. Students may choose to organize and strike if a school is operating in ways that seem unjust to the students. 

There are risks, of course. Strikers may all lose their jobs, as with the air traffic control workers whose union was broken[1] by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Striking students may flunk classes, get suspended, or even be expelled--as we saw[2] in spring 2024, when many universities had students strike in support of Palestinians.

Still, the strike frequently works, especially when good collective leadership negotiates intelligently. Strikes can stand a far better chance of success if all necessary preparations have been made for a longer action--strike funds to help workers pay bills, volunteer medical workers to help if coverage is lost or suspended, food pantries to keep families fed, and commitments to keep picket lines strong so other union members who may have business with the employer have a chance to refuse to cross the lines in solidarity. 

While a strike can have negative consequences for a collective that is unprepared or simply overmatched, it has far fewer consequences than actual blockades or sit-ins, and far fewer consequences than any resort to violence. Workplace democracy to working families may be just as critical as political democracy, and keeping the possibility of a strike as a BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) is one powerful way to participate in democracy.

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[1] https://libraries.uta.edu/news/1981-patco-strike

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/05/06/college-protests-suspensions-expulsion-arrests/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #41: Get on your neighborhood association

"All politics is local"--Tip O'Neill (The late former Speaker of the House said it often[1] but didn't coin it)

Neighborhood associations are important community organizations that play a vital role in the development of civil society. They help to protect economic and social interests (Mesch & Schwirian, 1996), they strengthen links between residents and policy makers (Logan & Rabrenovic, 1990), increase participation in the political process (Berry, Portney, & Thompson, 1993), and help improve the quality of life for the citizens of countless communities through collective action (King, 2004). 

--Matt Koschmann & Nicole M. Laster, 2011, p. 28.

Neighborhood associations date back in the US to essentially the founding of the country. They were one of the unique strengths of American democracy, as noted by Alexis DeTocqueville in his 19th-century writings on his travels in America, observing that local voluntary organizations kept citizens involved in their local politics but also connected them more directly to state and national elected representatives.

The power of the collective voice is of course evident to any elected official. Unions, congregations, and neighborhood associations have the ear of the politicians and can influence democracy at local, state, and national levels. 

The requirements to being involved are few, since the neighborhood association is almost always entirely voluntary. The easiest way to approach them is to attend a meeting and find out if what you are good at might be of some value to your association. 

They may need someone to liaise with a city department, a city council member, the precinct captain of the police, or any number of other possible relationships that can make the voice of your neighborhood more effective. They may appreciate your media talents for the local neighborhood monthly newsletter, or any number of other talents you have. 

Let them know your limits--it may be an hour a week or three hours every day--they are used to having a real range of helpers. 

Neighborhood associations knit civil society together to the extent that they have a diverse, active volunteer base.

References

Koschmann, M., & Laster, N. (2011). Communicative Tensions of Community Organizing: The Case of a Local Neighborhood Association.Western Journal of Communication, 75(1), 28–51. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/10570314.2010.536965

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[1] https://barrypopik.com/blog/all_politics_is_local

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #40: Learn civilian-based defense

Military strategists and nonviolence strategists alike have been examining cases of, and future possibilities of, civilian-based defense formally since 1975,[1] and informally going back to Gandhi's vision of a peace army, what he called a Shanti Sena--or even back to the American colonists engaging in civil society nonviolent actions against the British rule in the decade prior to the American Revolution. 

"Two things are certain about the future of politics and international relations: conflict is inevitable and effective defense will be required against internal usurpers and international aggressors" (Sharp, 1990).[2]

With that hard-nosed declaration, nonviolence researcher Gene Sharp[3] (1928-2018) began one of his monographs on the power and potential of unarmed civilians preparing for, and conducting, defense against enemies foreign and domestic. He cited many examples of how people in many countries around the world had done so, usually without any formal government agency to develop such a nonviolent force, sometimes without much preparation--learning as they went along. 

As Sharp, ably assisted at that time by nonviolence scholar Bruce Jenkins, compiled both case studies and descriptions of strategies and tactics from various struggles in different countries, the evidence of the possibilities based on reality, on actual history, took shape. 

Fast-forward 35 years and the case studies have multiplied, though humanity stubbornly refuses to demilitarize, perhaps out of some deadly admixture of fear and greed.

Somehow, the accretion of evidence that nonviolence works has not overcome the cultural, emotional, and insecurity-based dependence on killing machines. Frightened humans can commit atrocities, which leads to others' willingness to retaliate in-kind.

Militarism is grotesquely profitable for the corporations contracting with governments.

Thus, the barriers to serious development of a civilian-based defense remain quite high. For the foreseeable future, it will be up to civil society to self-organize, using its auto-didactic skills and communal connections to prepare insofar as is possible to do things like oust an oppressive ruler.

References

Sharp, Gene (1990). Civilian-based defense: A post-military weapons system. Princeton University Press.

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[1] (all noted in Sharp, 1990, p. 153):

Brigadier General Edward B. Atkeson, 'The Relevance of Civilian-based Defense to US. Security Interests," Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, vol. 56, no. 5 (May 1976), pp. 24-32, and no. 6 (June1976), pp. 45-55.

Adam Roberts, "Civil Resistance to Military Coups," Journal of Peace Research (Oslo), vol. m, no. 1 (1975),pp. 19-36.

Roberts, Adam, editor, Civilian Resistance as a National Defense: Nonviolent Action Against Aggression (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1968); reprint of The Strategy of Civilian Defence (London: Faber & Faber, 1967). Paperback edition with a new introduction, Civilian Resistance as a National Defense: Nonviolent Action Against Aggression (Harmondsworth, England, and Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1969).

Gene Sharp, "Making the Abolition of War a Realistic Goal," pamphlet, Ira D. and Miriam G. Wallach Award essay (New York: World Policy Institute, 1980).

Gene Sharp Making Europe Unconquerable (London: Taylor and Francis, 1985, and Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1985; second American edition, with a forward by George Kennan, Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1986).

Gene Sharp, National Security Through Civilian-Based Defense, booklet (Omaha. Civilian-basedDefense Association, formerly Association for Transarmament Studies, 1985).

" T h e Political Equivalent of War1--Civilian-based Defense," in Gene Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom (Introduction by Senator Mark 0. Hatfield), Boston, Mass.: Porter Sargent, 1980).

[2] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Civilian-Based-Defense-English.pdf

[3] https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/gene-sharp/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #39: Be a peaceworker

The relationship between peace and democracy is a complicated one, but the trend seems to be that each fosters the other. From the theories of Immanuel Kant, who wrote the germinal Toward Perpetual Peace, to the many researchers who opine about Democracy Peace Theory (DPT), it is clear when we examine the history of wars that democracies almost never go to war against other democracies (Simpson, 2019). 

Thus, working for peace generally[1] is working for democracy, and working for democracy is generally working for peace.

If your country is low on the democracy rankings and you are working for peace, that enhances the chances that democracy will improve in your country.

If you are working to change your despotic government into a democracy, doing so with peaceful means will more likely result in improved metrics of democracy, statistically speaking (Karatnycky & Ackerman, 2005).

All this is not to make an obviously ahistorical claim that democracies do not wage violent conflict. Not only is there political violence in democracies, there are innumerable cases of democracies waging war on nondemocracies. But the tendency is that working for peace is inextricably tied to working to strengthen democracy.

The contamination of peace by deterioration in democracy and participation in violence toward other nondemocracies is possibly most clear in the US, where Freedom House[2] ranks 57 countries as more free than the US, but the Global Peace Index[3] puts 131 other countries as more peaceful than the US.

Freedom of expression is a right that, if unused, may well tend to erode that right, and expressing ideas for more peace is a way to sustain our rights in a democracy even as it works for peace.

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[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/09/15/is-democracy-good-for-peace/

[2] https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores

[3] https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/#/

References

Karatnycky, Adrian & Ackerman, Peter (2005). How freedom is won: From civic resistance to durable democracy. New York, NY: Freedom House.

Simpson, S. (2019). Making liberal use of Kant? Democratic peace theory and Perpetual Peace. International Relations, 33(1), 109–128. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1177/0047117818811463

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #38: Join--or create--a political party

First, no law says you must register with a political party affiliation, so you can be a registered voter with no noted affiliation. The US government has a helpful website[1] that can direct you to your own state's laws and procedures. The Federal Election Commission[2] also has a website to help you learn how to register a political party once you cross the legal fundraising threshold. 

Every state runs voting in its own way, which might seem weird in the sense that it gives strange options to blocs of voters with questionable ethics to vote in primaries based on which party they claim to belong to, but then to vote for their actual preferred candidate in the general election. 

So investigate what seems accepted in your state and choose any identification that you feel represents your personal values. The range is enormous, but the main two parties, of course, have the vast majority of registered voters. The totals in the US have a general upward trend,[3] which makes sense as the population grows, with a seesaw of more during the presidential election years and somewhat fewer in the midterms. The total is more than 160 million, though far fewer actually vote, so your registration, your affiliation, and your actual participation can be critical. Even US Senate races get decided by small handfuls of votes out of the millions of registered voters eligible and the margins for all offices can be quite small[4]. Even in our country with all our millions, it can come down to a very few--and of course the counterfactuals are worth considering. 

·       What if Florida Democrats had turned out 538 more votes for Gore in 2000? Would Gore have ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq?

·       What if 313 fewer Democrats voted for Al Franken in the 2008 race for US Senate? Franken won by just 312 votes out of more than 2.4 million cast by Minnesota voters that year. Would the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) have passed into law or not?

·       An old friend of mine won his seat on the county board literally by one vote out of thousands cast. I was so relieved I could tell him that I got out and voted that day!

These stories are just common enough to help us all understand our power and our obligations to participate.

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[1] https://www.usa.gov/change-voter-registration

[2] https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/registering-political-party/

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registered-voters-in-the-united-states/

[4] https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/small-margins-a-look-back-at-the-closest-votes