NEW YORK -- The inaugural "America Talks" event begins tomorrow and runs through Sunday, as part of an effort to heal social and political divisions that have driven a wedge between people with different viewpoints.

Thousands of Americans will take part in the mass video-chat event, which marks the start of the fourth annual National Week of Conversation.

Cheryl Hughes is a co-organizer of the event and a nonprofit consultant from Greenville, Ohio. She is a self-described liberal, and says it's important to reach across the aisle.

Cheryl Hughes of Greenville, Ohio, a co-organizer, participant and self-described liberal, said it's important to reach across the aisle.

"I have actually lost friends because of positions that they hold," Hughes acknowledged. "I just have decided I need to become a better listener."

The National Week of Conversation is designed to counteract the kind of vitriol often found on social media, and introduce people to folks with differing views.

To be matched with a conversation partner for the event this weekend, sign up at AmericaTalks.us. The site also lists dozens of online forums on the schedule for next week.

Organizers ask people to choose courage over contempt, and reject the hostility that leads to political gridlock and hampers efforts to tackle the big issues.

Ron McFarland, a retired teacher from Iowa who describes himself as a fiscal conservative and moderate Republican, said he's taken heat for his views.

"There's so much hurt, so much polarization and divide in the country," McFarland remarked. "But for me, it's 'Go, America!'"

The National Week of Conversation promotes what organizers call "bridging norms." They advise everyone to listen with curiosity, speak from their own experience, and connect with respect.

SEATTLE - Constructive conversations online can seem few and far between. Research from the University of Washington explores how the design of social media sites affects disagreements.

Amanda Baughan, PhD Student in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, helped lead that research. The research showed that spending more time on a site did not correlate to more arguments.

But Baughan said arguments are common on sites like Facebook, where the goal can be to 'win' for whatever audience is reading the posts.

"There's not really a way to scale back what is happening between two people or a group of people in the comment section," said Baughan. "It can get very heated, very quickly."

Baughan analyzed what percentage of users of certain social media sites said they had arguments.

Seventy-percent of Facebook users said they had argued on the platform. Sites like Twitter and YouTube were considerably lower, with 30% and 6% of users, respectively, saying they'd argued on those platforms.

Baughan said the venue in which these disagreements took place also is important. More than three-quarters of people who used WhatsApp, a private messenger, said they got into arguments on the platform, but were less frustrated with their experiences.

Baughan said people reacted positively to the idea of bringing their arguments on sites like Facebook to a private space, where it can be easier to be vulnerable.

"I think that replicates a lot of how we have difficult conversations in real life as well," said Baughan. "Generally, I don't think we would choose to have it in a crowded room full of people. We would choose to find a time where it's just you and the person that you disagree with, to kind of hash things out."

Baughan said social media sites would need to present such an option sensitively - perhaps not introducing it for the first time while people are in the middle of a heated argument.

"That could seem very creepy because it's like, 'Oh, the social media company is monitoring what I say,'" said Baughan. "So, I think that how the option is presented is really important - probably having it be introduced when there's not an argument."

And Baughan said she would like to see social media companies think beyond individual users' experiences when designing their platforms.

"Especially in the past year with the pandemic, so many of our relationships were carried out online," said Baughan. "And making a bit of shift towards emphasizing the relationship, in addition to the user, could be really beneficial."

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Demands for fair maps and a transparent congressional redistricting process are getting louder in Ohio.

Despite a looming Oct. 31 deadline, the Ohio Redistricting Commission has as yet scheduled no public meetings on future congressional maps, so advocates are taking matters into their own hands, holding a "People's Redistricting Hearing and Rally" today outside the Statehouse.

Rev. Ray Greene, Jr., executive director of the Freedom BLOC (Black Led Organizing Collaborative), contended the current district lines do not provide fair representation.

"The government is ran by the people, and the only way that the people can run the government is to be involved in the government," Greene asserted. "We have to have grassroots leadership; we have to have our issues at the forefront of everybody's agenda. We have to demand that our elected officials do what's best for us."

Democrats on the commission are calling for public hearings, which House Speaker Republican Bob Cupp has said will "probably be scheduled in the near future." The map will have 15 congressional districts, since Ohio lost a seat in the census.

Tala Dahbour, policy director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of Ohio, said she is fighting for fair maps to ensure minority voices are empowered and part of the political process. She added for far too long, minority groups have been disenfranchised.

"The biggest mosque in Central Ohio is split between multiple congressional and state districts," Dahbour observed. "And so, any collective action taken from that Muslim community is diluted. Whatever power their voice might have had, it's now weakened through redistricting."

Meanwhile, the Ohio Redistricting Commission approved a state district map last month opponents argued solidifies a Republican supermajority in the General Assembly.

Greene thinks Black and Muslim communities will pay the price.

"We're being even more left out of the decision-making process," Greene stressed. "I haven't seen the congressional maps yet, but as far as the state House maps, we are being gentrified even more than we have been before. That's why these maps need to be deemed illegal that have been drawn at the state level."

Under the state's new redistricting process, the maps will have to be redrawn in four years, because they passed without bipartisan support. Three lawsuits alleging constitutional violations are pending, although Republican commission members maintain the maps are fair and legal.

HELENA, Mont. -- A new law in Montana, which its backers said was designed to cut down on fraud, could instead make it more difficult for some Montanans to vote.

During the 2021 session, lawmakers passed a measure to prohibit the practice of collecting and delivering voters' sealed absentee ballots for monetary benefit.

Alex Rate, legal director for the ACLU of Montana, said the law's ambiguous language could have a number of effects; for instance, on someone living in a retirement home who has a staff member deliver their ballot to the mail.

"Vulnerable communities, such as seniors or people living in assisted living who need the assistance of others, are going to be particularly impacted by these types of voting restrictions," Rate contended.

A similar Montana law was struck down as unconstitutional in 2020. The new law is part of a wave of other Republican-sponsored bills in Montana and other states that purport to secure elections.

Ballot collection is important in Montana because so much of the state is rural. Rate pointed out having ballots collected is especially helpful for the state's indigenous communities, where post offices and election offices may be far away. He also noted Native Americans have faced racism in the towns bordering reservations.

"You can imagine that it's not on the top of somebody's list to go expose yourself to that type of racism, and discrimination and hostility, in order to cast your ballot," Rate asserted.

Rate emphasized the law could have a chilling effect on voting, because potential voters might assume the law applies to them, when in fact, the restrictions are much narrower than they understand.

"I think that there is a real danger that we're going to see ballots going uncounted as a result of this particular law," Rate remarked.

Rate stressed the ACLU of Montana aims to have an injunction in place by next year to prevent the ballot-collection ban from going into effect before the 2022 elections.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.