Turnout this election is projected to be the highest in a century, and voters are doing everything they can to make their voices count. Waiting in line for hours (even if you’re the mayor). Voting in person despite the pandemic because you fear that your mail-in ballot could be one of the 1.02 million that might be discarded. And casting a ballot despite the potential that someone with a semiautomatic rifle will be watching you at your polling place.

But, does voting have to be so … hard?

Not really. Just watch the video above and you’ll see it’s not like this in other democratic countries around the world. Voting in other democracies is a snap. And, if you’re really lucky, you might score a “democracy sausage.”

When we showed voters from around the world what American elections are like in practice, they weren’t impressed. But they were impressed with our resilience and determination. So, while the world’s “oldest democracy” may be a bit creaky these days, let’s be clear: Go vote! That’s really the best way to make a change.

Over the past couple of months you, if you have children, have probably tried to set up some home boundaries while sheltering in place. Maybe you claimed a work space in the kitchen while trying to set up Zoom school for your kids in their bedrooms. Maybe you have mined some tips online on how to make it all work smoothly. So. How has it all worked out for you?

Not exactly as planned, right? Don’t feel bad. You’re far from alone. In the opinion video above we asked three families — a single dad with two spirited daughters, a family of four with a son home from college who struggles with his sudden loss of freedom and a blended family with five kids from three marriages. They filmed themselves and share what it has been like to work, parent, school, eat, sleep and hang out all jammed under one roof for three months straight.

As states start to open up and end Phase 1 of the great pandemic parenting experiment, families across the country have — through trial and error — managed to navigate all of this with varying degrees of success and failure.

Maybe this all looks familiar. But what happens next? Parents are still strained. Kids still miss having sleepovers. School is ending. Summer is coming. The center is not holding. What are the lessons we learned that will help with surviving Phase 2?

After Ahmaud Arbery was chased down and killed while he was jogging in Glynn County, Ga., investigators say, one of the white men accused of shooting him used a racial slur. In the above video, Wanda Cooper-Jones, Mr. Arbery’s mother, demands that these men be prosecuted not just on charges of killing her son but also for targeting him because of his skin color. Yet at the time this video was produced, that couldn’t happen: Georgia was one of just four states in the country without a hate crime law.

Georgia lawmakers responded to Ms. Cooper-Jones’s words. When they went back into session the week our video was released they called a hate crime bill to vote and passed it through the state legislature.

Now, if we can’t stop these hate-inspired attacks, we can at least prosecute them for what they are.

While the United States was creating confusion with its virus messaging, the rest of the world got creative.

No one likes to lose. But when politicians concede respectfully, everyone wins.

What do you want to be when you grow up? That’s not a common question for boys attending ultra-Orthodox yeshivas in New York. That’s because many of these schools focus on Judaic studies, preparing students for a life of religious scholarship — at the expense of basic reading, writing, math and science. New York State law mandates that private and religious schools provide a curriculum equivalent to that of public schools, and a 2019 report by New York City’s Department of Education found that only two of the 28 yeshivas it investigated met these requirements. This is especially problematic, considering that the city’s yeshivas receive over $100 million in state funds annually.

Authorities have failed to enforce the laws, allowing the community, which is a strong and unified voting bloc, to disregard secular education requirements. In the video above, a mother pleads with city and state officials to enforce the law so her son can receive one of the most basic rights: education.

What does it take for Black Americans to feel safe right now?

For some, it’s owning a gun. Even if that’s not something they may have ever wanted to do. In the video above, a chorus of Black voices from across the country — a schoolteacher in Oakland, Calif., a political strategist in Aurora, Colo., and others — have an urgent message: “Go buy a gun. Arm yourself. And just make sure you get some training.”

This is by no means the first time many Black Americans have felt the need to arm themselves for self-preservation. But with a white couple pulling guns on Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Louis, right-wing extremists increasing attacks and co-opting rallies to advance their own messaging and half of Black Americans already feeling that they can’t trust the police to treat them equally, some Black Americans are saying they now have no choice but to exercise their Second Amendment right.

TikTok is used by nearly 100 million Americans for everything from education about climate change and the Black Lives Matter movement to dance videos and comedic skits. The app has been downloaded more than two billion times. Do you use TikTok? What role does it play in your life?

Despite the video sharing app’s popularity, or because of it, President Trump threatened this summer to ban it in the United States. In August, citing national security concerns, he issued a series of executive orders that required ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, to sell its American assets.

TikTok content creators have been responding and reacting to the threatened ban and eventual sale of TikTok.