There is widespread agreement that the Nov. 3 election will be no like other,  layering a pandemic on top of a bitterly contested presidential election. Increasing options for absentee ballots is one solution that many states have embraced -- to protect voters and poll-workers and guarantee citizens the right to vote.

Vermont took absentee balloting one step further, joining a handful of states that mailed every registered voter a ballot with a paid for return envelope. The result has been a tidal wave of votes, with the state now leading the nation in absentee ballots returned on a per capita basis.

And this is where UVM Senior Valentina Czochanski comes in. Working with UVM’s  Community News Service, Valentina built a map that daily tracks state voting waves.

“I think it’s important for people to have access to this information because this election is so unique due to the pandemic,” Czochanski said.

The senior triple major in Global Studies, Sociology, and Italian Studies has studied the criminal justice system, volunteered in the local women’s prison and has been involved in recent protests about police misconduct and accountability.

“It all comes back to elections and voting,” Czochanski said. “I hope that having this data available might encourage people to vote and increase Vermont's voter participation.”

Czochanski plans to update the map daily, becoming the go-to source to understand state voting trends.

 “The raw data we get in this file every day is overwhelming, but this map is a really easy way to make the data accessible and allow people to be engaged in the election as it happens,” Czochanski said.

Yet the idea that more people than ever may vote because it is easier is encouraging, Czochanski said. “It is a critical moment in our democracy.”

As part of developing the map, Czochanski interviewed Vermont’s Secretary of State Jim Condos and a number of Vermont town clerks who are under enormous pressure – every day their mailboxes stuffed with ballots.

And although some national politicians say the system is rife with fraud, there is no evidence that mailing ballots lead to fraud, Secretary of State Jim Condos said.

“The true voter fraud in this country is denying an eligible American the right to cast a ballot,” Condos said in the interview.

Czochanski and Community News Editor Cory Dawson were interviewed on WCAX.  The Community News Service is a UVM coordinated effort, part of the Reporting and Documentary Storytelling program to give students hands-on experiences in journalism and storytelling.