NOTE: Faculty, if you are interviewed and quoted by news media, or if your work has been cited, and you have an online link to the article or video, please let us know. Contact us at news@csusb.edu.
CSUSB full-time lecturer interviewed about concerns over missing ballots in Riverside County
KCBS KCAL
Oct. 13, 2020
Jess Nerren, CSUSB full-time lecturer of communication studies, was featured on KCBS KCAL about voting access and ballot irregularity in Riverside County.
Some Riverside County residents were concerned that they have yet to receive their mail-in ballots. Nerren was one of those voters. She said her alarm bells went off when she noticed her friends were already voting.
“And I saw my friends dropping off their ballots and putting on their voting stickers, and I still didn’t have anything,” she said.
When Nerren went on her neighborhood Facebook page, she realized she was not alone.
“And everyone’s saying the same thing,” she said. “I felt like I was alone. I felt like this was just weird for me, and it turns out it’s happening to a lot of us.”
Nerren tried to track her ballot using both a state and county online tool, but to no avail. One tracker said her ballot was mailed Sept. 10, the other said Sept. 28.
“And, to me, this isn’t a who you’re gonna vote for issue, this is an everyone deserves to have access to be able to vote issue,” she said. “And right now, I don’t have access to be able to vote, because I don’t have a ballot.”
A spokesperson for the Riverside County Registrar’s Office said that ballots were not sent out until Oct. 5.
Watch the segment at "'It's happening to a lot of us': Riverside County voters concerned about missing mail-in ballots."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune / Press Enterprise / The Sun / Redlands Daily Facts / Daily Bulletin
Oct. 19, 2020
Throughout the Inland Empire during the pandemic, people have started selling more and more plants as others have flocked to pop-ups, nurseries, greenhouses and even plant sellers’ homes.
This entrepreneurial expansion has become apparent over the past few months, according to Mike Stull, a professor of entrepreneurship and director of Cal State San Bernardino’s Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship. The pandemic is not just a health crisis, he said, it’s also an economic one that has many people looking for ways to make ends meet.
“We saw this in the last recession in 2008 and in general it’s been pretty robust this time around again,” Stull said. “This type of e-commerce has only gotten even more popular as it has become more practical and convenient for those at-risk.”
Though the industry is currently dominated by corporate big box stores and e-retailers, he said, there’s a growing number of young entrepreneurs entering the field. At CSUSB, interest in entrepreneurship has never been higher: 265 freshmen enrolled in the university’s entrepreneurship program for fall 2020, a school record.
“There is clear enthusiasm and it’s also obvious with the high school students that we speak to in recruitment,” Stull said. “This isn’t a trend going away anytime soon and we’re going to probably see more people putting their entrepreneurial skills to use.”
Read the whole article at "Pandemic has many in Inland Empire turning to indoor plants for escape."
Associate professor co-wrote article about why Trump is losing support of white suburban women
FiveThirtyEight
Oct. 20, 2020
Meredith Conroy, CSUSB associate professor of political science, co-wrote an article about why President Trump is losing the support of white suburban women.
According to their analysis of polling data from Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape, Trump is losing suburban voters to Biden, by 54 percent to 44 percent.
What is driving this move away from Trump and Republicans in the suburbs? According to their analysis of Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape data, beyond the diversification of the suburbs, it’s mostly because of white suburban women: 54 percent of them support Biden, while just 45 percent support Trump (very few are undecided).
Read the whole article at "Why Trump Is Losing White Suburban Women."
CSUSB professor comments on extremists as election draws near
Wired
Oct. 20, 2020
Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, was quoted in an article about how online extremists could interfere with the upcoming Nov. 3 election.
As the presidential election draws closer, online extremists are restive and experts are concerned about what extremists might do during and after the election. The months around the 2016 and 2018 elections saw sharp spikes in hate crimes and militia groups like the Oath Keepers organizing armed poll-watching operations. Will November 3, 2020, see more of the same? Of course, potential for violence doesn’t have to be organized to be a concern.
“I think most of what is going on right now is more on the conspiracy-theorizing and venting side of the fence, but as we have seen before, there are frequently under-the-radar loners and cells who will direct their aggression toward those identified as legitimate targets,” said Levin.
Read the whole article at "How Online Extremists Could Interfere With the Election."
These news clips and others may be viewed at “In the Headlines.”