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The Panama Canal has value to American business—but it has more value to China

The Panama Canal has value to American business—but it has more value to China

Congress Bill Spotlight: renaming Gulf of Mexico as “Gulf of America”

Congress Bill Spotlight: renaming Gulf of Mexico as “Gulf of America”

Project 2025: Part II

Project 2025: Part II

A fictional, fanciful sign depicts the results of voter suppression through the unfair, partisan manipulation of district lines (gerrymandering).

The worst congressional gerrymanders of the 2020s

The False Promise of Dismantling DEI

The False Promise of Dismantling DEI

Video: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primary

Video: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primaryplay icon
Ballots & Bagels Ep. 3: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primary
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The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumJun 28, 2022
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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In episode 3 of the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s Ballots & Bagels series, Elections Integrity Fellow David Levine is joined by Joseph Kirk, election supervisor for Bartow County, Georgia. They talked about preparing for and administering Georgia’s May 24th primary, as well as ways to strengthen trust in future elections.

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TikTok: The Aftermath
Media & Technology

TikTok: The Aftermath

USAID flag outside a building
Governance & Legislation

Judge Issues Order to Temporarily Restore Flow of Foreign Aid Funds under Trump Administration

Interpersonal communication is a – not the only – way to reduce political divides
Bridging & Common Ground

Interpersonal communication is a – not the only – way to reduce political divides

Fulcrum Democracy Forum: Maxine Rich
Bridging & Common Ground

Fulcrum Democracy Forum: Maxine Rich

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One Lesson from the Elections: Looking At Universal Voting

A roll of "voted" stickers.

Pexels, Element5 Digital

One Lesson from the Elections: Looking At Universal Voting

The analysis and parsing of learned lessons from the 2024 elections will continue for a long time. What did the campaigns do right and wrong? What policies will emerge from the new arrangements of power? What do the parties need to do for the future?

An equally important question is what lessons are there for our democratic structures and processes. One positive lesson is that voting itself was almost universally smooth and effective; we should applaud the election officials who made that happen. But, many elements of the 2024 elections are deeply challenging, from the increasingly outsized role of billionaires in the process to the onslaught of misinformation and disinformation.

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MERGER: The Organization that Brought Ranked Choice Voting and Ended SuperPACs in Maine Joins California’s Nonpartisan Primary Pioneers

A check mark and hands.

Photo by Allison Saeng on Unsplash. Unsplash+ License obtained by the author.

MERGER: The Organization that Brought Ranked Choice Voting and Ended SuperPACs in Maine Joins California’s Nonpartisan Primary Pioneers

Originally published by Independent Voter News.

Today, I am proud to share an exciting milestone in my journey as an advocate for democracy and electoral reform.

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Half-Baked Alaska

A photo of multiple checked boxes.

Getty Images / Thanakorn Lappattaranan

Half-Baked Alaska

This past year’s elections saw a number of state ballot initiatives of great national interest, which proposed the adoption of two “unusual” election systems for state and federal offices. Pairing open nonpartisan primaries with a general election using ranked choice voting, these reforms were rejected by the citizens of Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. The citizens of Alaska, however, who were the first to adopt this dual system in 2020, narrowly confirmed their choice after an attempt to repeal it in November.

Ranked choice voting, used in Alaska’s general elections, allows voters to rank their candidate choices on their ballot and then has multiple rounds of voting until one candidate emerges with a majority of the final vote and is declared the winner. This more representative result is guaranteed because in each round the weakest candidate is dropped, and the votes of that candidate’s supporters automatically transfer to their next highest choice. Alaska thereby became the second state after Maine to use ranked choice voting for its state and federal elections, and both have had great success in their use.

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Top-Two Primaries Under the Microscope

The United States Supreme Court.

Getty Images / Rudy Sulgan

Top-Two Primaries Under the Microscope

Fourteen years ago, after the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the popular blanket primary system, Californians voted to replace the deeply unpopular closed primary that replaced it with a top-two system. Since then, Democratic Party insiders, Republican Party insiders, minor political parties, and many national reform and good government groups, have tried (and failed) to deep-six the system because the public overwhelmingly supports it (over 60% every year it’s polled).

Now, three minor political parties, who opposed the reform from the start and have unsuccessfully sued previously, are once again trying to overturn it. The Peace and Freedom Party, the Green Party, and the Libertarian Party have teamed up to file a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Their brief repeats the same argument that the courts have previously rejected—that the top-two system discriminates against parties and deprives voters of choice by not guaranteeing every party a place on the November ballot.

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