With an historic U.S. presidential election on the horizon, UWM’s Center for 21st Century Studies, in the summer of 2024, interviewed over 60 people in Milwaukee County about their relative trust or distrust in the U.S. voting system. Story facilitators connected with a wide range of communities through the Center’s mobile Story Cart to understand how people across diverse backgrounds experienced civic engagement. Story Cart: Trust and the Vote features select interviews, images, and other memoranda documenting these exchanges that reflect Milwaukee County’s collective hopes, doubts, and ideas for transforming democracy. 

The collected stories in this exhibition were made possible through community collaborations with Milwaukee Public Libraries, Milwaukee Turners, the League of Women Voters, UWM’s Children’s Learning Center, DoSomething, and UWM’s Peck School of the Arts design instructors and students.  Special thanks to the 2024 Story Cart Fellows and C21’s 2024-2025 Graduate Fellows, who conducted, recorded, and edited the interviews. Story Cart: Trust and the Vote was also made possible by a grant from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.


Listen to the stories:

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.