Editor's note: This excerpt comes from a piece in the Guardian.

"Three leading scholars of election law are starting a new project at New York University, focused on studying public confidence in government and political polarization, according to details first shared with the Guardian.

The effort announced on Tuesday, called the Democracy Project, will be led by NYU law professors Richard Pildes, Samuel Issacharoff, and Bob Bauer (Bauer served as Joe Biden’s personal attorney and Barack Obama’s White House counsel). It will bring together experts with a wide range of ideological and political backgrounds to discuss what reforms could look like.

“Dissatisfaction with democratic government has been pervasive for the last decade throughout the West. Our aim in launching the Democracy Project is to analyze the sources of this phenomenon along many dimensions and across national boundaries, as well as identify the most promising ways to meet this challenge,” Pildes, Issacharoff, and Bauer said in a joint statement.

The effort comes as vast numbers of Americans are concerned about the state of democracy. A June NPR/Marist poll found that 76% of Americans felt democracy was under serious threat. Seventy-three per cent of Americans also see politically motivated violence as a major problem.

The project is launching with an essay series on democracy issues that will launch daily over the next 100 days. Those set to contribute to the series include former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, former Montana governor Steve Bullock, former Justice on UK supreme court Lord Jonathan Sumption, former South Africa supreme court Justice Catherine O’Regan, and businessman Mark Cuban."