Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Benjamin F. Henwood, Professor of Social Policy and Health, University of Southern California

Can giving homeless people US$750 a month to use any way they choose help them move into long-term housing?

I am the director of the University of Southern California Homelessness Policy Research Institute. My research team, in partnership with Miracle Messages, a San Francisco social services nonprofit, set out to answer that question in a study that will be published in an upcoming peer-reviewed issue of Social Work Research.

In one of the first randomized studies of basic income for homeless people in the U.S., 103 homeless people living in California received $750 payments every month for a year. Then we compared their housing situations with people who were homeless but did not receive this money. All study participants met the federal definition of literal homelessness. That basically means they either stayed in a homeless shelter or lived on the streets.

In 2022, when we began this study, we expected the answer to our question would be “yes.”

Beginning with optimistic expectations

A similar experiment in Canada with 50 homeless participants showed that providing 7,500 Canadian dollars in cash as a lump sum resulted in 99 fewer days homeless over a one-year period.

In addition, Miracle Messages had already completed a similar but smaller pilot in which six of its nine participants moved into long-term housing after receiving $500 monthly for six months.

But the results of pilots with so few participants can be misleading because the people who got money may have found housing anyway. What’s more, an experiment conducted in Canada may not directly translate to the United States – which has a weaker safety net than its northern neighbor.

Homelessness is often short-term for everyone

After receiving monthly payments for a year, nearly half of the participants in our study were no longer homeless.

But almost the same share of people who didn’t receive the payments had also found housing.

This points to an important reality: For many Americans, homelessness – while highly destabilizing – is often temporary. And, most people who are living on the street are actively trying to become housed.

Because the payments did not substantially change the rate at which participants obtained housing, we found ourselves asking another question: If the money didn’t alter housing outcomes, what did it change?

How people spent the money

Basic income programs typically let people decide how to use the funds they get. Critics of giving people money with no strings attached often worry that they will spend it, or even squander it, on so-called “temptation goods,” such as alcohol and illegal drugs.

That isn’t what we observed.

The people taking part in this study overwhelmingly spent this money on basic needs, such as food, housing-related expenses, transportation and health care. Spending on alcohol, cigarettes and illegal drugs accounted for 5% of the money.

But those expenditures only tell part of the story. Cash also allowed people to meet their own immediate and personal needs.

One participant used this money to keep his car running – both for transportation to work and as the place where he slept at night. Another bought birthday and holiday presents for his relatives. One sent money to aging parents. Another donated to a charity because it restored a sense of contribution.

Another paid down credit card debt that had been a source of stress.

While we found no evidence that the basic income payments reduced homelessness, other aspects of the participants’ lives appeared to become more stable. We found no evidence that the money caused them any harm.

Why this result makes sense

The distribution of cash assistance has been evaluated in many places, usually targeting a specific kind of community, such as unemployed individuals or families living in poverty. Studies consistently find that people spend the money on necessities and end up better off.

Homelessness presents a different challenge. Housing requires access to an available and affordable unit. In most U.S. housing markets, a $750 monthly payment doesn’t cover that month’s rent. Nationally, rent for a typical one-bedroom apartment was about twice that amount in February 2026.

Programs tied directly to housing, such as rent vouchers or subsidies, may therefore have a more immediate effect on housing status.

Moving forward, I believe our results suggest that for a basic income approach to help counter homelessness, monthly payments would have to be larger, continue over a longer period – or both. The payments should, that is, be closer to covering the full cost of a month’s rent in the local area.

Benjamin F. Henwood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Getting $750 a month didn’t end homelessness – but our study shows it still improved the lives of homeless people – https://theconversation.com/getting-750-a-month-didnt-end-homelessness-but-our-study-shows-it-still-improved-the-lives-of-homeless-people-278141

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brad Badertscher, Professor of Accountancy, University of Notre Dame

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is expected to soon become a public company in what may be the biggest initial public offering in history. But my new research suggests that investors who buy shares of the company are unlikely to see the explosive growth that past IPOs had.

The rocket and satellite maker, which confidentially filed to go public on April 1, 2026, is reportedly planning to raise as much as US$75 billion in the offering, which would give it a valuation of $1.75 trillion.

SpaceX isn’t the only high-profile company expected to sell shares to the public for the first time this year. Artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic are also expected to list in the coming months in massive IPOs.

For Wall Street, that means blockbuster deals with hefty fees for the banks involved. For early investors and executives, it could mean enormous paydays. For everyday investors, meanwhile, the question is whether a hot company “going public” today represents a good investment opportunity.

What does it really mean when a company “goes public”?

For decades, an IPO marked the moment when ordinary investors could buy into a fast-growing company and share in its future expansion. Today, that moment often comes much later in a company’s life – after much of the dramatic growth has already taken place behind closed doors.

I study financial reporting, executive compensation and initial public offerings. In a recent study of nearly 1,000 U.S. IPOs conducted from 2007 to 2022, my co-authors and I examined what happens in the critical period just before and after companies go public. Our research suggests that the modern IPO increasingly represents a chance for insiders and executives to cash out — not the start of value creation for public investors.

IPOs used to fund growth

An IPO is when a private company sells shares to the public for the first time. Traditionally, IPOs helped young, cash-strapped companies raise money to grow. Investors supplied capital and shared in future success.

Many iconic businesses — including Amazon and Apple — went public early in their life cycles. Much of their dramatic growth happened after they were already public.

That pattern has changed. Research shows the number of publicly traded U.S. companies has fallen sharply since the late 1990s. At the same time, private capital from venture capital and private equity firms has expanded. In our research, we document that the average age of a company when it goes public has more than doubled from four years in the early 2000s to nearly 10 years by 2025.

Companies can now raise billions privately. They do not need public markets as early as they once did.

What we found in nearly 1,000 IPOs

Our research focuses on what regulators and practitioners call “cheap stock.”

This refers to stock options granted to executives before an IPO at a share price far below the eventual IPO price. Stock options give executives the right to buy shares later at a fixed price. If the IPO price is much higher than that exercise price, the options are immediately very valuable.

For example, say you’re a CEO of a company going public. You received stock options that give you the right buy 10,000 shares of your company’s stock at a price of $2. The IPO price is set at $20. After the IPO, you could exercise your right to buy the company’s shares at $2 and then immediately sell those shares for around $20, for a gain of $180,000.

We examined nearly 1,000 IPOs between 2007 and 2022. On average, the IPO price was 5.7 times higher than the exercise price of options granted in the year before the IPO.

In simple terms, executives often held options that surged in value the moment the company went public. Some of this difference may reflect real growth or the fact that private shares are less liquid – that is, less easy to sell – than public ones. But even after adjusting for those factors, the gap remained large.

This matters for future shareholders, namely those buying shares after the IPO, as substantial value has already been transferred to insiders before public investors bought shares.

Incentives to go public

We also found patterns in which companies granted more deeply discounted options.

Companies backed by venture capital and private institutional investors were more likely to show significant gaps between option prices and IPO prices. This supports a straightforward incentive story.

Some early investors want liquidity, or investments that are easy to turn into cash. Granting executives options that become highly valuable at the IPO can help motivate managers to complete the offering. In that sense, the IPO often serves as a liquidity event — a way for insiders to cash out.

That does not necessarily imply wrongdoing, but it does suggest the IPO now frequently reflects insiders’ exit timing rather than simply public investors’ growth opportunity.

What happens after the IPO

The story does not end on IPO day.

Our research shows that companies with more cheap stock options invested less in capital expenditures and research and development after going public. Cheap stock options provide less incentives for the company to take risks. And that in turn can affect a company’s future financial prospects.

Executives who already hold valuable stock options may prefer stable growth over aggressive expansion of the company. Since risk and reward are linked, companies that take fewer risks tend to grow at a slower pace, meaning future shareholders may see smaller gains.

Our research supports this conjecture, as we found that companies with more cheap stock experienced lower stock returns over longer horizons after going public. That matters for new investors who are not only expecting exponential growth after the IPO but also longer-run stock performance.

For public investors, the takeaway is simple: Much of the explosive growth in corporate value now occurs while companies are still private.

Brad Badertscher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. SpaceX and OpenAI IPOs are unlikely to bring skyrocketing returns that Amazon and Apple did, as companies go public later in life and early investors cash out – https://theconversation.com/spacex-and-openai-ipos-are-unlikely-to-bring-skyrocketing-returns-that-amazon-and-apple-did-as-companies-go-public-later-in-life-and-early-investors-cash-out-276147

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Michael Delayo, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication Arts and Sciences, Penn State

MLB’s past few seasons have been plagued by a spate of gambling scandals.

In April 2024, authorities arrested Ippei Muzihara, the interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, on suspicion of illegally transferring more than US$16 million from Ohtani’s bank accounts to pay a bookie. Muzihara pleaded guilty in February 2025.

Two months later, MLB suspended four minor leaguers for violating the league’s sports betting rules. The league also issued a lifetime ban to San Diego Padres utility infielder Tucupita Marcano – the first active player in a century to receive one due to gambling.

The following season, MLB placed Cleveland Guardians All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase and starting pitcher Luis Ortiz on indefinite leave after suspicions emerged that they’d rigged pitches to help gamblers win bets. In November 2025, both were federally indicted, and each has pleaded not guilty.

But if you thought that MLB might ease up on its embrace of sports betting ahead of the 2026 season, you would be mistaken.

On March 19, 2026, MLB announced a new partnership with Polymarket. The world’s largest prediction market, Polymarket allows users to buy shares on the outcomes of future events – like betting – but with probabilities instead of odds.

For most of baseball’s history, formal affiliation with any form of gambling was inconceivable. That has changed under current MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred who, since the start of his tenure in 2015, has embraced gambling and prediction markets as they’ve become legalized in the U.S.

I’ve researched and written about the league’s abrupt reversal from anti-gambling crusader to sports gambling partner, and how Manfred has justified this pivot to players, fans and the media.

The about-face is even more jarring when you consider the fact that the commissioner position itself was created in the wake of the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal.

A higher standard

During that infamous episode, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Chick Gandil and five of their teammates on the Chicago White Sox conspired to intentionally lose the World Series, forcing the sport to break from the gambling culture that helped fuel its rise.

With baseball’s integrity in doubt, the league chose an outsider – Illinois federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis – as its first commissioner.

“We have got to have a higher standard of integrity and honesty in baseball than in any other walk of life,” Landis said upon accepting the job. “And we are going to have it.”

Thus began baseball’s century of resisting – and punishing – any whiff of gambling.

In 1947, Landis’ successor, Happy Chandler, suspended Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher, in part, for his ties to gamblers.

Bowie Kuhn, who served as commissioner from 1969 to 1984, suspended All-Star pitcher Denny McLain in 1970 for his involvement with bookmakers. He later banned baseball greats Willie Mays in 1979 and Mickey Mantle in 1983 for working as casino promoters, though commissioner Peter Ueberroth reinstated them in 1985.

The most notorious post-Black Sox scandal involved all-time hits leader Pete Rose. In 1989, Ueberroth launched an investigation after hearing that Rose had bet on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.

A. Bartlett Giamatti, who became commissioner later that year, banned Rose from the sport for life in 1989 at the conclusion of the investigation.

The next two commissioners, Fay Vincent and Bud Selig, consistently denied Rose’s appeals to be reinstated. In 2012, Selig described gambling as “evil,” adding that it “creates doubt and destroys your sport.”

From fantasy to reality

Manfred took the baton from Selig in 2015, just as daily fantasy sports were becoming more popular.

Daily fantasy sports players draft rosters of athletes competing that day, stake money and win cash prizes based on the athletes’ real-life performances. Sports leagues permitted daily fantasy sports, deeming them games of skill, not chance.

Even though daily fantasy sports operated in a legal gray area, Manfred inked a deal with DraftKings in April 2015 to make the fledgling brand MLB’s “Official Daily Fantasy Game.”

“The fantasy space,” Manfred explained at the time, “was really, really important to [MLB] in terms of engaging young people.”

Manfred took pains to distinguish these games from gambling, telling reporters in April 2015 that “there’s a line in the law. And we understand that line very carefully.”

But by the time the Supreme Court decided in 2018 to put the legalization of sports gambling in the hands of the states, Manfred described the league as a gambling authority that was “in a position to meaningfully engage and shape … what the new regulatory scheme looks like.”

Protecting integrity to enable prosperity

Much of MLB’s shift is in response to legal, technological and cultural forces beyond its control.

But there’s a difference between accepting the legality of gambling and actively promoting it, whether that’s through opening sportsbooks at stadiums like Wrigley Field or saturating game broadcasts with gambling advertisements.

Under Manfred, the league’s messaging can be summed up as follows: Gambling is happening whether we like it or not. By going all in on gambling, we can at least control what shape it takes and better shield the sport from those with ill intent.

It’s a bit convoluted, to say the least. But the scandals that have emerged have given Manfred opportunities to double down on the logic.

By giving exclusive data access to MGM Sportsbook, for example, the league claims it can detect and monitor suspicious behavior.

Manfred has said that baseball is “in a better position to know what’s going on today then we were in the old days when it was all illegal,” a position he credits to the league’s work with its gambling partners.

In this way, the league frames its gambling partnerships as protective – even as new scandals emerge.

Numbers games

Other trends have made fans and owners more receptive to gambling.

Baseball’s embrace of gambling and prediction markets – with their spreads, parlays and share prices – is unfolding at a time when people are more comfortable with the integration of data and technology. Rhetoric scholar Michael Butterworth calls this “the statistical frame” – the idea that the world is increasingly understood through data, whether it’s through polling results, blood oxygen levels and, yes, betting odds.

The game has also changed from the owners’ box. Fewer teams are being steered by local, civic-minded businesspeople. In their place are international investment groups and private equity firms that treat franchises as part of a broader asset portfolio. According to sports journalist Bruce Schoenfeld, the sports industry has come to resemble “a mutual fund that includes television and digital content, real estate, retail clothing, hospitality, catering and concessions.”

For a sport increasingly focused on return on investment and growth, a reunion with gambling was a natural next step for baseball. And it’s been a boon for the bottom line.

Baseball’s ‘best interests’

In conjunction with the Polymarket announcement, Manfred also signed a memorandum of understanding with the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, reiterating that “protecting the integrity of the game on the field is our top priority.”

But what about the protection of the athletes themselves?

Baseball players have opened up about the threats they’ve been subjected to since gambling’s legalization.

“You hear it all, man,” Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Paul Sewald told USA Today. “You blow a save, you don’t come through, you get it all. … ‘You cost me all of this money. (Expletive) you. (Expletive) your family. I’m going to kill you and then kill your family.’”

Manfred has said that these developments are “a matter of concern to us that we take really seriously.”

It’s possible that MLB will return to an anti-gambling stance in the face of these mounting threats. But as annual revenues for sports betting soar toward US$20 billion, that’s a tough bet to make.

Michael Delayo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. MLB doubles down on gambling with new Polymarket deal – https://theconversation.com/mlb-doubles-down-on-gambling-with-new-polymarket-deal-279176

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Laura E. Knouse, Professor of Psychology, University of Richmond

Do you ever find yourself at the end of a nonstop day feeling like you haven’t made progress on the things that are actually important to you? If so, you’re not alone.

If you are a person with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, you might find it even harder to direct your effort toward what’s most important – especially if your goal is a ways in the future and you have lots of distractions to manage.

Fortunately, there are research-backed strategies that can help you start and finish a task even when you feel stuck.

I’m a professor and clinical psychologist who has spent my career researching the challenges that adults with ADHD experience and ways to help improve their quality of life. I co-authored a book with Dr. Russell Barkley, a preeminent ADHD expert, published in October 2025 called “Living Well with Adult ADHD: Practical Strategies for Improving Your Daily Life.”

There are a few strategies that may help you more effectively direct your efforts toward the things that matter most.

Tips grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy

One of the most effective nonmedication treatments for ADHD in adults is specialized cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT.

By teaching skills that help manage thoughts, feelings and behaviors, CBT helps people with ADHD learn and use self-regulation skills. Research shows that CBT for adult ADHD can help reduce ADHD symptoms and improve quality of life.

But you don’t have to be in full-time therapy or even have ADHD to potentially benefit from CBT strategies.

If you find that you have difficulty doing what’s most important in our increasingly distraction-filled world, these tips might help.

Before diving in:

• Identify the goals that are most important to you, not just most urgent. Sometimes the most meaningful tasks, like taking steps toward a new career or growing your social network, fall by the wayside because they don’t have external deadlines.

• When testing out new strategies, it can take some time to see results. But if you could take meaningful action just 10% more often, that could add up to much better outcomes. So choose one of the following tips and practice until it becomes a habit.

Tip No. 1: Break it down

Important tasks are often also bigger, scarier and more ambiguous, which can make it hard to get started. Imagine you want to get a new job and the next step is to draft your cover letter.

If you saw “Write cover letter” on your to-do list, would you jump right into that task? Maybe. But if you’re like me, this task might be daunting and vague enough to make you turn to an easier task instead.

To get past that emotional barrier, break the task into much smaller steps. No step is too small if it gets you started.

So instead of “Write cover letter,” try “Outline cover letter” or “Find template for cover letter.” Still in avoidance mode? How about “Create cover letter document with opening line.” Even if you stop there, you’ll be one step closer to the goal.

When breaking down tasks, a timer can be your best friend. “Work on cover letter for 15 minutes” might feel less overwhelming and build behavioral momentum.

Consider, for instance, the Pomodoro technique, invented by a university student in the 1980s who was trying to come up with a strategy to work more efficiently.

A pomodoro, the Italian word for tomato, represents an amount of time – typically 25 minutes – to focus on a task, followed by a short break. The creator of this technique used a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, thus the name.

To practice the technique, write down the task you’ll work on, start the timer and get to work. When the alarm sounds, take a five-minute break to refresh. Then move to the next interval of 25 minutes, until after four repetitions you get a longer break, such as 15 to 30 minutes.

Research shows that this technique may reduce distractibility while working, leading to greater productivity and a sense of completion. It helps me get started on my most avoided task: grading papers. I’m much more likely to commit to 25 minutes of grading than I am to tackle them all at once.

Tip No. 2: Notice your avoidant thoughts

“I have much more time to do that later.”

“I’ll do just one more thing before I leave.”

Do these thoughts sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. Using mini-surveys sprinkled throughout the day, my lab found that college students reported having thoughts like this about 50% of the time. For non-college adults, the rate was only slightly lower, at about 45% of the time.

We also found that when people had recently had these thoughts, they were more likely to be distracted and avoid something they should have been doing. We decided to call these thoughts “avoidant automatic thoughts” because they pop into your head effortlessly and are associated with putting off doing a task.

Importantly, we found that college students with ADHD report more avoidant automatic thoughts, along with the distraction and procrastination that come with them.

Just becoming aware of these automatic thoughts in daily life is a good place to start. Make a list of the thoughts that you experience most frequently when you go into avoidance mode.

If you catch yourself having one of these thoughts, coach yourself by adding a strategy to your self-talk. For example, when “Write cover letter” results in the thought, “I’ll have time for that on Friday,” say to yourself: “But you can do a little bit now. Maybe just two Pomodoros.” Then add: “After that, you can check your email.”

Tip No. 3: Leverage relatively rewarding activities

When people are avoiding tasks, they’re not usually sitting around doing nothing.

In one study mentioned above, we found that work-related tasks were among the most frequently avoided. What were people likely to be doing instead? Other work-related tasks. A similar example: The only times in college I ever did a dorm room deep-clean was when I should have been studying for finals.

This so-called “procrastivity” might contain some useful clues about how to motivate your way through tasks you tend to avoid.

It’s helpful to think about rewards not as things – like cookies, video games and gold stars – but as activities, like eating cookies, playing video games, seeing gold stars and thinking about what they represent.

There’s a name for this: Psychology’s Premack principle holds that the opportunity to do a more preferred activity can be a reward for doing a less preferred activity. An example would be what’s commonly known as “grandma’s rule” – if you eat your vegetables, then you can eat dessert.

This means that you can arrange the activities on your schedule in a way that uses more rewarding activities to “pull along” your behavior during less rewarding activities. Set up your day to “do the worst first,” and strategically place more enjoyable activities after difficult but important ones. For example, a friend of mine delays her first cup of morning coffee until she completes her workout. It’s not pleasant in the moment, but it helps her get the workout done, and her coffee feels extra rewarding afterward.

What are some relatively rewarding activities that already happen throughout your day? Can you arrange the order of things to leverage them? If you can flip the motivational script even once a day, it might make a big difference in making progress toward your goals.

Remember that better self-regulation is about making small, sustainable changes that fit with your daily life. There will definitely be setbacks: After all, you’ve been doing it the old way for a long time! But be sure to notice and celebrate even the small steps toward your goals.

Laura E. Knouse receives book royalties from Routledge Publishers and Guilford Publications and is a consultant and clinical advisor for Inflow Holdings, Inc., maker of a CBT-based app for adult ADHD. Dr. Knouse is a member of the professional advisory board for CHADD (Children and Adults with ADHD).

– ref. For adults with ADHD – or even those with just some symptoms – using smart strategies to start and complete tasks can make all the difference – https://theconversation.com/for-adults-with-adhd-or-even-those-with-just-some-symptoms-using-smart-strategies-to-start-and-complete-tasks-can-make-all-the-difference-271332

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Gareth Barkin, Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies, University of Puget Sound

A friend in Indonesia recently told me about a conversation he had with ChatGPT. He had typed a question in Indonesian – Bahasa Indonesia – about how to handle a difficult family dispute. The chatbot responded fluently, in perfect Indonesian, with advice about communication strategies and conflict resolution. The grammar was flawless. The tone was appropriate. And yet something felt off.

What the AI offered was advice rooted in American cultural assumptions: prioritize your own preferences, communicate directly, and if family members don’t respect your boundaries, consider cutting them off.

The response was in Indonesian but shaped by values that centered individual autonomy over the consensus-building, social harmony and collective family dynamics that tend to matter more in Indonesian social life.

My friend was skeptical enough to notice the mismatch and mention it to me. Many users might not. That is what prompted my research, published in the International Review of Modern Sociology, into a pattern I found across major AI systems: Even when they were fluent in several languages, the language models retained their Western worldview. I call this “epistemological persistence.”

Fluency is not the same as understanding

I have studied Indonesian society, media and culture for more than 30 years. That gives me a particular vantage point on a problem that reaches well beyond Indonesia: large language models – LLMs – like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini can now speak dozens of languages with remarkable fluency. That fluency creates the impression that AI understands local cultures.

Producing grammatically correct Indonesian, Arabic, Swahili or Hindi, however, does not change the underlying worldview through which these systems reason. It does not alter how they think about people, relationships, responsibility or what counts as a good outcome.

Those assumptions are shaped by training data drawn predominantly from English-language sources based in the United States. Meta’s open-weight model LLaMA 2 was trained on approximately 89.7% English-language text; LLaMA 3 includes only about 5% non-English data. Major commercial models don’t publish equivalent breakdowns but draw heavily on the same sources. Arabic, the fifth-most-spoken language globally, accounts for under 1% of content in large training datasets. Languages with tens of millions of speakers, including Bengali and Hausa, barely appear.

Beneath the surface of these multilingual conversations, English functions as a hidden intermediary. A study by researchers at the University of Oxford found that LLMs routinely conduct their core reasoning in English, even when prompted in other languages. They translate the output at the final stage. A user receives flawless text in their preferred language, but the underlying logic originates elsewhere.

What the data shows

To examine how this plays out in practice, I ran experiments with ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. I asked questions in both English and Indonesian about concepts such as education, responsibility, well-being and several Indonesian terms that resist direct translation into English. These included terms such as “gotong royong,” which describes a tradition of communal mutual assistance.

Then I asked questions about education in both languages, using the word “pendidikan” in Indonesian. The answers were consistently centered on individual development, personal autonomy, critical thinking and preparation for the labor market.

What largely disappeared were the dimensions of pendidikan that Indonesian educational traditions have historically emphasized. In Indonesia education has long been focused on ethical discipline. Scholars of Indonesian education such as Christopher Bjork and Robert Hefner have documented how distinct these traditions are from models that treat education primarily as a path to individual advancement and career preparation, which is the lens through which the AI tools viewed education.

The Indonesian concept of “malu” offers a starker example. Often translated as “shame” or “embarrassment,” malu has been analyzed by anthropologists Clifford Geertz and Tom Boellstorff as something closer to a shared social awareness.

A person might feel malu when speaking out of turn in front of elders, or when a family member’s behavior reflects poorly on the household. It regulates conduct and signals awareness of one’s position within a web of relationships. It is cultivated, not merely felt. It is a form of relational awareness rather than a private psychological event.

When asked directly to define malu, the models acknowledged its social dimensions. In scenario-based questions that simply used the word without asking for a definition, however, all three fell back on the English translation of shame, consistently framing it as an individual emotional experience.

One representative response framed malu as a normal emotional reaction to be managed through self-reflection and confidence-building – a personal psychological problem rather than a social one. The relational dimensions of the concept disappeared entirely, replaced by the language of individual emotional regulation.

A distinctly American worldview travels inside the translation, largely unannounced.

Why this probably won’t change soon

Translation is far cheaper: Train one model on the vast English-language web, then use multilingual output capabilities to serve global markets. As media scholar Safiya Umoja Noble argues about algorithmic systems more broadly, what looks like a technical outcome is actually a structural one, shaped by who has the wealth and infrastructure to build these systems.

The embedded worldview isn’t a mistake; it’s what happens when knowledge production is profit-seeking.

The main exceptions are Chinese models such as DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. They represent a genuine alternative to the U.S.-dominated pipeline, though research shows they operate through a distinctly Chinese cultural lens. Asked about a workplace disagreement, for instance, they tend to advise silence or indirect phrasing to preserve harmony rather than the direct, private correction that Western models recommend.

Other regional efforts, such as SEA-LION for Southeast Asia and Kan-LLaMA for the Indian language Kannada, use U.S. models as their foundation. They add additional vocabulary and cultural information related to local languages. But the core logic remains tied to the original U.S. training.

Why this matters more than it might seem

One might reasonably ask whether this is simply a limitation users can work around. Decades of media scholarship demonstrate how audiences interpret foreign media through their own cultural frameworks.

For example, anthropologist Brian Larkin documented how viewers in northern Nigeria rework the narratives of Bollywood films to align with local Islamic values. Larkin found that Muslim viewers in Kano reinterpreted Bollywood films through an Islamic moral lens, reading their narratives as reinforcing local values of propriety and ethical conduct. That dynamic depends on encountering media as something with a visible origin. But to do that, you need to know where your media is coming from.

Conversational AI is different. Research at Harvard Business School finds that people increasingly use AI systems for emotional support, advice and companionship. When a culturally specific worldview is delivered through a relationship that feels attentive and empathetic, in your own language, it arrives less as a claim to be evaluated and more as a shared premise within a dialogue. It becomes difficult to notice, and harder to contest.

The concern is that these perspectives become the new normal. Certain ways of reasoning about family life, education and responsibility may come to feel natural and self-evident. Linguistic diversity among AI systems is real and growing. Cultural worldview diversity, however, has not kept pace.

Gareth Barkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI’s fluency in other languages hides a Western worldview that can mislead users − a scholar of Indonesian society explains – https://theconversation.com/ais-fluency-in-other-languages-hides-a-western-worldview-that-can-mislead-users-a-scholar-of-indonesian-society-explains-276865

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Dana Johnson, Postdoctoral Fellow in Health Disparities Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Teens in the U.S. are obtaining medication abortion pills through telehealth, and young people age 18 to 24 are ordering medication abortion at much higher rates than older adults.

Those are the key findings of a new study that my colleagues and I published in the journal JAMA Health Forum.

We examined requests for medication made to an online telemedicine service – one of the few to support people in all 50 states, without age restrictions. We compared average weekly request rates both before and after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in June 2022. Over time, we examined request rates across three age groups (15-17, 18-24 and 25-49) and by the severity of state-level abortion restrictions.

After Roe was overturned, researchers expected the number of abortions across the U.S. to fall. Intuitively, this makes sense, as most states have at least one law substantially restricting abortion services, which limits access at a clinic.

However, research from the Society of Family Planning #WeCount project shows the opposite: that the number of abortions has increased nationwide. The trend was even seen in states that ban abortion.

The main reason for this is the steep rise in medication abortion services through telehealth, which has expanded access for tens of thousands of people. As of early 2025, an estimated 1 in 4 abortions are done via telehealth. Until now, research and media attention have largely focused on this phenomenon among adults rather than among teenagers.

Why it matters

Understanding this trend among adolescents is important because minors – or teenagers under 18 – face a unique legal situation when it comes to abortion.

More than 7 million teenage girls age 13 to 17 live in a state with an abortion ban, and the legal landscape is quickly changing for teens.

In most states, adolescents seeking abortion services must navigate parental involvement laws, which require a minor to obtain consent for, or notify a parent of, their abortion. Such laws make it difficult or even impossible for many teens under 18 to obtain care, even in states like Massachusetts or Pennsylvania that have moved to protect abortion access.

In some cases, teens seek judicial bypass services, which help them avoid the parental involvement process. In addition to legal barriers, teens who seek abortion may already face stigma around teen pregnancy and sex, likely lack reliable access to a car – or may not even have a driver’s license – and probably don’t have US$600 or more on hand to pay for an abortion at a clinic.

To circumvent these barriers, minors are bypassing parental involvement requirements and requesting telehealth at higher rates in states with parental involvement laws, compared with their counterparts in more liberal abortion access states.

This is important because this trend may be evidence of the huge barrier of parental involvement laws. It may also signal that states with parental involvement laws also have additional policies restricting abortion – such as mandatory waiting periods or gestational bans – and that minors are living in an even more restrictive policy context than adults.

What still isn’t known

More research is needed to understand how and why teens are turning to online providers. Findings will help clinicians and advocates support adolescents who are ordering telehealth medication abortion online.

There are some very real legal risks involved for any teenager ordering pills online, and young people have been criminalized for taking abortion pills ordered from online sources.

Furthermore, anti-abortion prosecutors and lawmakers frequently target teens. For example, Idaho has become notorious for passing an “abortion trafficking” law, which makes it illegal to help minors access abortion.

At the federal level, attempted revisions to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone have explicitly tried to ban access for minors, and federal officials continue to spread misinformation about the safety of medication abortion for teens.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

The headline of this article has been updated to more accurately reflect the 18-24 age group that is driving this trend.

Dana Johnson receives funding from the National Institute of Health, the Society of Family Planning Research Fund, and the UW-Madison Collaborative for Reproductive Equity. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Jane’s Due Process.

Laura D. Lindberg is affiliated with Youth Reproductive Equity and Power to Decide

– ref. Teens and young adults are driving the demand for online abortion pills via telehealth – new research – https://theconversation.com/teens-and-young-adults-are-driving-the-demand-for-online-abortion-pills-via-telehealth-new-research-277943

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Dennis Murphy, Ph.D. Student of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology

Before dawn on March 1, 2026, Iranian Shahed drones struck two Amazon Web Services data centers in the United Arab Emirates. A third commercial data center in Bahrain was hit, though it is less clear whether it was deliberately targeted. Iran has also indicated that it considers commercial data centers to be targets.

This is the first time that a country has deliberately targeted commercial data centers during wartime. Data centers have been targets of espionage and cyberattacks in the past, notably when Ukrainian hackers destroyed data stored in a Russian military-affiliated data center in 2024. This, however, was a physical attack. Drones damaged buildings.

Advances in artificial intelligence have increased the importance of data centers. The U.S. military, in particular, has made great use of AI systems for decision support in its attacks on Iran and Venezuela. Given how important data centers are, Iranian forces could be targeting the infrastructure Iran’s leaders believe is supporting strikes on Iran.

It is not altogether clear that these particular data centers were used by the U.S. military. Instead, the attacks may have been part of a broader effort to punish the United Arab Emirates for its ties with the U.S.

In my experience as a Ph.D. candidate at Georgia Tech studying how technology drives changes in international security, I don’t think the attacks signal any significant change in the nature of warfare. But they are forcing nations to recognize that data centers are targets of war – even if they don’t directly support military operations.

Data centers and the cloud

The United States military is increasingly incorporating advanced AI capabilities into its decision support systems. From the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to supporting military strikes against Iran, the U.S. has been using AI, especially Anthropic’s Claude, for intelligence analysis and operational support.

AI is unlocking faster ways to carry out operations in war, but the AI tools the military often uses are not located on a plane or ship. When a service member uses Claude, the computing infrastructure that powers the model and its analysis usually goes to a secure Amazon Web Services cloud that hosts secret government data and software tools.

Commercial data centers are where the cloud lives. The next time you pull up Netflix and watch your favorite shows, you are likely streaming the programming from a data center, possibly AWS. When AWS data centers go down, outages affect all sorts of entertainment, news and government functions.

With AI as a driver of economic growth, data centers are key forms of infrastructure. They ensure that AI can continue to run, as well as much of the underlying internet that governments and industry rely on. When Iran attacked the UAE’s data centers, it caused widespread disruption to the local banking system.

Commercial data centers enable most of the technology that runs the modern world, including AI systems. Disrupting them is key to disrupting the military and society of a country. Given that AWS provides and operates many of the commercial data centers where the cloud lives, it is likely that its data centers will continue to be targeted in conflict.

Going after US allies

Researchers at Just Security noted on March 12, 2026, that the United States requires cloud-computing service providers to store government and military data within the U.S. or on Department of Defense bases: “Moving such data to Amazon data centers in the Gulf region would require special authorization; we are unaware if that has been granted.”

Nevertheless, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the strikes were against data centers supporting “the enemy’s” military and intelligence activities. And 10 days after the initial attack on the data centers, an Iranian news agency claimed that major tech company data centers and other physical assets in the region were considered “enemy technology infrastructure.”

Instead of military reasons, Iran may well have targeted the UAE to rattle the global economy and garner attention. Given the prominence of the Gulf as a major recipient of U.S. technological investment, the attack may also have been a symbolic one aimed at the heart of U.S.-Gulf cooperation. AI infrastructure such as commercial data centers is a growing part of U.S. leadership in the region, and this war could jeopardize the future of AI infrastructure in the Gulf.

Growing importance, easy targets

Though data centers are increasingly important for national security, the economy and society at large, it can be tempting to suggest these strikes represent a fundamental shift in the nature of war. While that is a possibility, it is important to remember that Iran launched thousands of missiles and drones at targets in the UAE. Though the vast majority were intercepted, the two that struck data centers are a small portion of the ones that got through to civilian targets in UAE territory, including strikes on airports and hotels.

The relative vulnerability of commercial data centers – they are large, relatively fragile and lack dedicated air defenses – suggests that the ones in the UAE may have been targets of opportunity or convenience. In other words, they were hit because they could be hit.

Nevertheless, it seems likely that as the use of AI tools and other cloud-based resources continues to grow in importance for countries around the world, commercial data centers will be targets in future conflicts.

Dennis Murphy is affiliated with Georgia Tech, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the RAND Corporation, the Notre Dame International Security Center, and the Astra Fellowship. He previously was affiliated with Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Marine Corps University, and the Cambridge University ERA Fellowship.

– ref. Why Iran targeted Amazon data centers and what that does – and doesn’t – change about warfare – https://theconversation.com/why-iran-targeted-amazon-data-centers-and-what-that-does-and-doesnt-change-about-warfare-278642

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Craig Fehrman, Adjunct instructor at the Media School, Indiana University

In April 2026, four astronauts are scheduled to fly around the Moon. As part of NASA’s Artemis II mission, they will become the first humans to do so in half a century. One crew member, pilot Victor Glover, will become the first Black astronaut to ever orbit the Moon.

Glover’s achievement is worth celebrating. But it’s also worth remembering that he belongs to a long and underappreciated history. America’s first Black explorer didn’t fly an Apollo rocket or sail with the U.S. Exploring Expedition. He traveled with Lewis and Clark, and he was known by a single name: York.

I’m a historian who spent five years writing a book about Lewis and Clark, and I found new documents that show York was one of the most important people on their expedition. Even in a party that could number as many as 45 men, York stood out – for his courage, his skill and his sacrifices that helped the famous captains reach the Pacific Ocean.

York’s life as a slave

York was born in Virginia around 1770. Growing up, he was a creative and sociable child, unusually tall with dark hair and a dark complexion – “black as a bear,” a contemporary noted.

He was also enslaved by the Clarks. William Clark, who was around the same age, was also unusually tall, though his hair was a rusty red, and sometimes the boys played together. But the playing stopped once York turned 9 or 10. That’s when he joined the adult slaves in working full time. That’s also when he began to note the differences between his life and William’s – differences that became only clearer once William started ordering him around.

In the 1780s, the Clark household headed to Kentucky. York met a Black woman there and married her. He also became William’s “body servant.”

A body servant was a slave who stayed close to his owner and prioritized his comfort, laying out his clothes and serving his meals. When Meriwether Lewis asked Clark to join his expedition, in 1803, Clark ordered York to accompany him.

Perhaps York was excited for this adventure. Perhaps he was not – it would be punishing, and he would be separated from his wife.

Either way, York didn’t have a choice.

The Corps of Discovery

York proved his worth from the start. Once they reached St. Louis, the soldiers, later known as the Corps of Discovery, rushed to raise winter quarters. Working in hail and snow, York and the others built log huts. They needed rough planks for their tables and bunks, but the carpenters had only a single whipsaw to make them. They chose two men to operate this crucial tool. One of them was York.

On May 14, 1804, the corps began ascending the Missouri River. York helped row and tow the party’s barge, which was the size of a semi-truck trailer. He carried a rifle and hunted – according to the expedition’s journals, he was only the fifth named member to bring down a buffalo. York cooked for the captains. He collected scientific specimens. He nursed the sick, including several soldiers and, later on, Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman who would also prove essential to the expedition’s success.

The soldiers were not always kind in return. During this period, officers rarely brought along enslaved body servants. York’s race probably made some of the men angry or uncomfortable. One day, someone threw so much sand in his face that it nearly blinded him. Clark claimed it was “in fun,” but he also wrote that York was “very near losing his eyes,” and no one else got cruelly sprayed with sand.

That fall, during councils with Native leaders, York played a surprising and vital role. The Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa all crowded in to see him and to touch his skin. They had never met a Black person before, and York showed off his strength and played with the Native children. Later, the Arikara said York was “the most marvelous” thing about the corps.

The next year, the expedition crossed the Rockies and the Continental Divide. York’s most important – and most overlooked – contributions came soon after. On the Columbia River and its tributaries, the party had to dig out five new canoes and then paddle them through treacherous rapids.

Lewis and Clark allowed only their best rivermen on these foaming, rock-riven waters. One of them was almost certainly York. During my research, I found an unpublished letter in which Clark praised York’s ability to “manage the boats.”

Just as important, York was a strong swimmer, a rare thing in an era when many people never learned to swim.

York’s life as an explorer

On the Columbia River, the corps survived a series of terrifying choke points – soggy hazards they referred to as the “Long Narrows” and the “Great Chute.” After that came the ocean. They had traveled together for more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers), and when the captains asked the men to vote on where to put their final winter quarters, they made sure to ask York, too.

It was the latest sign that his role had changed during this epic journey. But those changes began with York. In the West, he found ways to make choices and assert himself. He sent a buffalo robe to his wife in Kentucky. When Clark told him to scale back his performances for Native people, York ignored him – because he wanted to, and because he could.

York’s vote was also evidence that, like Victor Glover today, he was an official American explorer, a key member of a sprawling, federally funded mission. From 1804 to 1806, the government devoted a larger percentage of its budget to the corps than it devotes to NASA today.

Part of that money was earmarked for York. The Army gave officers who brought along their slaves a monthly ration or its cash equivalent. When the corps made it home, the government paid US$274.57 for York’s labor, a sum similar to what the privates received. But that money didn’t go to York. It went to Clark.

The hidden history of Black explorers

There have been many Black explorers in American history. Thomas Jefferson launched other expeditions besides Lewis and Clark’s, and those expeditions also included enslaved people, though their names have not survived. Isaiah Brown served on the Wheeler Survey, which mapped the West in greater detail after the Civil War. Matthew Henson accompanied Robert Peary on his Arctic expeditions, which received some federal support. More recently, NASA has depended on Black astronauts such as Guy Bluford, Mae Jemison and Jeanette Epps, among others.

York and Victor Glover are, for now, the first and most recent examples of this inspiring tradition. But their contributions go beyond that. When the captains asked York to vote on the winter quarters, they were acknowledging in some small way that he’d proven he was more than a body servant.

Of course, York had always been more than that. It just took 4,000 miles for Lewis and Clark to see it.

Craig Fehrman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Astronaut Victor Glover is the latest in a long line of Black American explorers − including York, the enslaved man who played a key role in the Lewis and Clark expedition – https://theconversation.com/astronaut-victor-glover-is-the-latest-in-a-long-line-of-black-american-explorers-including-york-the-enslaved-man-who-played-a-key-role-in-the-lewis-and-clark-expedition-279168

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Allison Mashell Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Civil Rights Studies, University of Notre Dame

President Donald Trump appeared on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast in February 2026, where he stated: “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over, we should take over the voting.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Trump’s call to nationalize elections, to transfer the constitutionally mandated control of elections from local to federal authorities, drew bipartisan opposition and added to Democratic fears that the president may attempt to interfere with upcoming midterm elections.

Despite Trump’s call to “nationalize the voting,” the U.S. Constitution clearly notes that states run elections – not the federal government.

The federal government, however, has a role to play in national elections – as an observer. Federal observation ensures that Americans cast their votes on election day without reprisal.

Initially dispatched to deter voter discrimination against Black Americans after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, election observers ensured that those qualified to vote could do so without trouble.

But with its 2013 ruling in the Shelby County v. Holder case, the U.S. Supreme Court changed the federal government’s relationship to the election process. The ruling significantly weakened the federal govenment’s ability to send federal observers to the polls.

As a scholar of civil rights and voting rights, I know that federal oversight during elections has always been a valued part of the electoral process, even when subject to criticism.

Yet, this current moment, with the Trump administration’s efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2026 midterms, feels different. What I have noticed recently is how the public’s thinking has shifted about the federal oversight of elections. Where once it was largely welcomed as an ensurer of fairness and proper procedures, now it is seen as a misuse of authority.

Establishment of federal observers

The key contribution of the Voting Rights Act that Americans are typically taught about in school is its abolition of racial discrimination in voting. The measure put a stop to poll taxes and literacy tests, which had disproportionately reduced Black voter registration.

But the act also created the type of federal observation of elections that is most familiar to Americans today.

The measure allows the Department of Justice to deploy federal observers to polling stations. That deployment can happen through a court order or by requirement to places with documented histories of voter suppression. The latter was determined by a section of the Voting Rights Act that also details the guidelines for which places merit that designation.

Federal observers take notes, often beside poll monitors, and document potential unlawful practices by poll workers.

Unlike monitors, federal observers are stationed inside polling stations. They keep notes on the tallying of votes and verify those thrown out. And where the Justice Department requires the permission from respective districts to send monitors, federal observers are sent by the U.S. attorney general and do not require the same permission.

Historically, observers were also charged with registering voters at polling stations and local registrars’ offices with the specific goal of assisting disenfranchised minorities.

Perception of federal observers

Determined to maintain Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation, several Southern Democrats opposed the Voting Rights Act.

Some Americans also criticized the act as government overreach. And they castigated the U.S. attorney general in 1965 when he dispatched federal registrars to the South following the passing of the measure, and when he sent federal observers to the South for the 1966 congressional elections.

Despite this opposition to federal observers, and just months after the Voting Rights Act’s passage, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights wrote that federal observers received “praise from registration workers and the (voter registration) applicants.”

Within a few years of the act, roughly 1 million Black Southerners had registered to vote. Over time, federal election observers began to focus less on registering voters, practically phasing out this practice by the 1980s, and serving only as observers.

The change

Over the decades, conservative politicians, as they gained more seats in Congress and state legislatures, developed new strategies – they filed lawsuits, rearranged voting districts – to circumvent what they argued was federal overreach in the election process. These changes helped them gain political influence and promoted their philosophy of states’ rights. They were successful.

The increase in conservative political influence gave way to an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. This was reflected in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder.

In that ruling, the court struck down the section in the Voting Rights Act outlining the guidelines for deciding whether a county or state needed federal oversight. With no guidelines to follow, the federal government removed most of its oversight.

After the court’s ruling, several states – Texas, Alabama and Mississippi, for example – made rapid changes to the voting process. Those included new voter ID laws, the purging of voter registration rolls and gerrymandering. These changes have resulted in further voter disenfranchisement, disproportionately effecting Black and Hispanic voters.

The Voting Rights Act guidelines had also helped determine where to send federal observers. With this section revoked, the federal government’s ability to send federal observers, in the way it had done for roughly 50 years, also disappeared.

The Justice Department sent federal observers to five states during the 2016 presidential election, compared to 23 states during the 2012 presidential election.

Since Shelby, disagreements over federal oversight persist and the role of federal observers has changed.

In 2024, the Justice Department announced it planned to send out 86 monitors on Election Day, the most federal monitors in two decades, due to concerns of possible partisan interference in elections. Some Republican-led states threatened to ban them from the polls.

To send out federal observers, the Justice Department needs a court order. But during the 2024 elections, courts determined that only four states needed federal observer oversight.

Redefining federal observers

During the Civil Rights Movement, federal election observers were the strongest line of defense to ensure fair voting.

Recently, however, the federal government’s election focus – such as attempting to require voters to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote – has shifted to what it says is voter fraud and accusations of cheating.

Still, one thing has remained certain. Federal observers are important. Their history, even now as they are less prevalent, can inform how we discuss the federal government’s role in elections.

Allison Mashell Mitchell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Federal election observers once played a key role in securing voting rights for all − but times have changed – https://theconversation.com/federal-election-observers-once-played-a-key-role-in-securing-voting-rights-for-all-but-times-have-changed-275991

Source: The Conversation – USA – By John J. Martin, Assistant Professor of Law, Quinnipiac University

In May 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice began sending letters to state governments demanding copies of statewide voter registration lists. The request was unprecedented: It demanded not only publicly available voter data, such as names and addresses, but also sensitive information, including driver’s license and Social Security numbers.

That data is considered highly sensitive because it can be used to commit identity theft, access financial or government records, and facilitate targeted harassment or intimidation, particularly if the data were mishandled or leaked.

Underlying these requests is the Trump administration’s stated goal of rooting out fraudulent and illegal voting. With voter data in its hands, the DOJ seeks to identify ineligible voters and mandate state election officials to remove those voters from the rolls.

States have responded in a variety of ways. Some have fully complied with the requests, some partially complied, and many outright refused to provide any voter information. For the latter states, the Trump administration has taken the fight to court and sued to get the information, claiming that federal law requires the states to hand it over.

The majority of cases are still going through the courts.

I’m an election law scholar who focuses on election administration. This battle over voter data has raised numerous questions about the Trump administration’s motives, the legality of its actions and, more generally, the role of the federal government in election administration.

The DOJ has a tough road ahead in convincing election officials and judges across the country that all of its demands in these cases are constitutionally legitimate.

Federal power grab

States have exclusive authority to govern and administer state and local elections. The federal government, on the other hand, historically has played a much more limited role in election regulation and administration. By constitutional design, Congress may regulate only the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections – in other words, the procedural elements of elections for federal offices.

And even then, states hold concurrent authority to regulate federal elections.

Nevertheless, in his second administration President Donald Trump has sought to expand the federal government’s control over elections. In February 2026 he called on Congress to “nationalize” elections. He has also made an administration priority the passage of the SAVE America Act, a bill that would mandate states to turn away any voter without documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.

Trump’s initiatives apparently stem from conspiratorial allegations that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, resulting in fraudulent and illegal voting that gave Joe Biden the presidency. And they are ultimately what animates the DOJ’s crusade for voter information from the states, with Attorney General Pam Bondi having recently stated that “accurate, well-maintained voter rolls are a requisite for the election integrity that the American people deserve.”

So far, the DOJ has sent requests to at least 48 states and the District of Columbia demanding their complete voter registration lists – information on every individual registered to vote in the given state.

In doing so, the DOJ has asked the states to sign onto an agreement under which they agree to remove within 45 days any voters that the DOJ flags as ineligible. But by signing this agreement, a state is effectively handing over the administration of its voter rolls to the federal government.

DOJ’s legal arguments

Only 12 states – Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming – have fully complied with the requests, handing over to the DOJ private information such as the driver’s license and Social Security numbers of their registered voters.

Five states, meanwhile, have provided publicly available voter information – name, address and party affiliation – to the DOJ while withholding more sensitive information. The remaining 31 states of the 48 to receive requests, along with the District of Columbia, have refused to give any voter list to the federal agency.

The DOJ has sued 29 states for refusing to hand over voter lists and has also sued the District of Columbia, sparing only Iowa, Alabama and South Carolina. Only one sued state – Oklahoma – has thus far capitulated to the DOJ.

In these lawsuits, the DOJ cites three legal sources that supposedly give the agency the right to request voter information from state officials.

First, the DOJ points to a provision of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 that requires states to “make available for public inspection” all records necessary to ensure the accuracy of their voter registration lists. As critics note, though, this provision does not require states to reveal sensitive voter information. All 50 states are, in fact, currently in compliance with the act’s mandate.

Second, the DOJ invokes the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and its requirement that all states must maintain a computerized, statewide voter registration list. Nevertheless, no provision in that law provides explicit authority to the federal government to request these registration lists from state officials.

Finally, the DOJ has argued that the states have an obligation under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to comply with the agency’s demands. Specifically, Title III of the act permits the U.S. attorney general to request for inspection “all records and papers” kept by state election officials relating to “any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting.”

While perhaps the strongest of the three arguments, that title of the Civil Rights Act goes on to require the attorney general to offer a “statement of the basis and the purpose” of their request.

In the DOJ’s requests to states, Bondi has apparently provided zero justification as to why the states must hand over sensitive voter information to the DOJ. Indeed, any stated purposes appear unrelated to the Civil Rights Act’s aims of combating racial discrimination.

What’s possible

There are further legal questions regarding whether the states could even comply with the DOJ’s proposed 45-day deadline for removing declared ineligible voters.

For example, the National Voter Registration Act forbids states from removing people from the voter rolls in certain instances without first providing notice and waiting two federal election cycles – a timeline well beyond 45 days.

In the 29 targeted states, federal courts have thus far dismissed four lawsuits in California, Georgia, Michigan and Oregon. Oklahoma, as noted above, has settled its case with the DOJ. While the remaining lawsuits have yet to fully play out, the DOJ likely faces less-than-sympathetic judges in these cases.

Even if the DOJ loses in court, though, the federal government may continue attempting to receive states’ voter information through other means.

The SAVE America Act, for instance, currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate, contains a provision that incentivizes states to submit their voter registration lists to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on a quarterly basis or otherwise subject their residents to stringent voter ID laws. Should Congress pass the act, the executive branch would have much clearer federal authority to force voter data from state election officials.

John J. Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Department of Justice is suing states for sensitive voter data − an election law scholar explains why federal efforts are facing resistance – https://theconversation.com/the-department-of-justice-is-suing-states-for-sensitive-voter-data-an-election-law-scholar-explains-why-federal-efforts-are-facing-resistance-278512