Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Tennessee lawmakers ban ranked-choice voting

Ranked-choice voting in Tennessee

Lawmakers in Tennessee blocked the city of Memphis from conducting ranked-choice elections.

David Underwood/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Alternative voting systems have been making inroads across the country in recent years but suffered a setback Monday when the Tennessee General Assembly passed a ban on ranked-choice voting.

Assuming Gov. Bill Lee signs the bill into law, this will end a saga that began in 2008 when the people of Memphis voted to use RCV for city elections but had yet to use it — and mark a rare reversal of an electoral system change.


Ranked-choice voting, also known as an instant runoff, was used in more than 43 jurisdictions over the past few years, according to FairVote, which advocates for RCV and other changes to elections systems. New York City is the most populous jurisdiction to use RCV, along with the state of Maine, San Francisco, Minneapolis and many other cities. In 2020, Alaskans approved the use of RCV for federal and state general elections.

The Virginia Republican Party held a ranked-choice gubernatorial primary in 2021, leading to the nomination of now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin — a rare statewide win for a Republican in a state that has been trending Democratic.

The voters of Memphis never got an opportunity to use a system they approved. The local measure authorized the city to begin using RCV after election officials determined that voting equipment could handle it. That approval was granted in 2017 and the city planned to use RCV for the 2019 city council elections (following reaffirmation in a 2018 referendum), but a state election official determined ranked voting would violate the state law.

That led to a series of lawsuits on behalf of Memphis voters, but those filings will be moot if the bill is enacted.

"Ranked choice voting is the fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform in the country for good reasons. As more than 50 cities have shown, ranked-choice voting is straightforward to implement and easy and popular with voters. That's why many Republicans introduce pro-RCV legislation and Republican parties regularly choose to use RCV for party contests,” said FairVote President and CEO Rob Richie. “It's disappointing that the Tennessee legislature is denying the will of Memphis voters — the voters who twice overwhelmingly voted to implement RCV. We hope they still get a chance in the future."

In an RCV election, voters rank their preferred candidate. If no one receives a majority of first-place votes, the candidate with the least support is eliminated and that person’s voters are redistributed to second-choice candidates. The process continues until someone has a majority of the votes.

In a standard election with more than two candidates, someone can win without earning a majority of votes.

Supporters of ranked-choice voting say that, in addition to guaranteeing the winner can claim majority support, RCV encourages more civil campaigning because candidates need to appeal to a wider base of support in order to earn secondary votes. It also can save money for cities and states by eliminating the need to manage expensive runoff elections.

Ranked-choice voting is not the only alternative method expanding in the United States. Approval voting, in which voters select as many candidates as they want with the person with the most support winning, has been implemented in St. Louis and Fargo, N.D.

Read More

Supreme Court greenlights Project 2025 Plan to Dismantle  Education Department

In the summer of 2025, the Trump administration’s education agenda is beginning to mirror the blueprint laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

Getty Images, Maskot

Supreme Court greenlights Project 2025 Plan to Dismantle  Education Department

This past spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part, nonpartisan series examining Project 2025—a sweeping policy blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. Our analysis explored the proposed reforms and their far-reaching implications across government. Now, as the 2025 administration begins to take shape, it’s time to move from speculation to reality.

In this follow-up, we turn our focus to one of the most consequential—and quietly unfolding—chapters of that blueprint: the dismantling of public education.

Keep ReadingShow less
Community-Driven Support Helps Refugees Thrive

Illustration of silhouette refugees walking in line over American flag

Getty Images I stock illustration

Community-Driven Support Helps Refugees Thrive

Ali’s name has been changed to protect his identity and ensure the safety of his family, who remain in Afghanistan. The name of the Colorado nonprofit featured in this story has also been withheld out of concern for the potential danger to the refugee clients it serves.

Ali knew it was time to flee on August 15, 2021. The day the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, he and his family became a vulnerable minority overnight. Fearing for their safety, they fled – first to Iran, then Qatar, then Japan – before ultimately resettling in Colorado in 2023.

Keep ReadingShow less
Rock Stars of American Science May Soon Take Their Expertise Abroad. That Should Alarm All Americans.
person in blue shirt writing on white paper
Photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash

Rock Stars of American Science May Soon Take Their Expertise Abroad. That Should Alarm All Americans.

Recently, I attended a West Coast conference on the latest research findings in cosmology and found myself sitting in a faculty dining hall with colleagues from around the country. If it had taken place a few months earlier, our conversation would have been filled with debates on the morning’s presentations, but now everything had changed. Against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s attacks on universities and research funding, the question we struggled with was: “When is it time to leave the U.S. and establish our research programs elsewhere?”

One colleague planned to enroll their children in an international school to learn French in case the family had to leave the country in the next few years. Another, whose home institution has been under particularly fierce attacks by the government, said they would stay and fight to support their students, but only so long as their family remained safe. At the same meeting, I heard from a Canadian researcher whose institution was compiling a list of American scientists now considered vulnerable.

Keep ReadingShow less
As Puerto Rico’s Power Grid Crumbles, Rural Medical Patients Are Turning to Rooftop Solar

Plaza de la Independencia Energetica, operated by Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. The plaza’s solar panels provide power and shelter for Adjuntas residents to use during natural disasters.


Photo Provided

As Puerto Rico’s Power Grid Crumbles, Rural Medical Patients Are Turning to Rooftop Solar

In this two-part series, Lily Carey reports on energy instability in rural Puerto Rico and its impact on residents with chronic medical conditions. Faced with limited government support, community members have begun building their own power structures from the ground up, ranging from solar microgrids to community health clinics.

In the second and final part of the series, Carey reports on how local activists are providing for sick and elderly residents in Puerto Rico’s Cordillera Central.

Keep ReadingShow less