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Democracy Madness: On to the Elite Eight (Voting Division)

Sports and America
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The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumApr 08, 2020
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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How low does a seed have to be to officially be a "Cinderella" team? Banning straight-ticket voting and promoting so-called STAR voting have scored big upsets, but otherwise the top seeds in the Voting division of our Democracy Madness bracket are through to the Elite Eight.

The next round starts Wednesday and continues Thursday.

Automatic voter registration and ranked-choice voting blew away their opponents in the first round, while felon voting rights and early voting both snuck through. AVR and felon voting rights are going head-to-head now. Will felon voting rights be able to pull off the upset? Or will AVR continue to crush its opponents?

Remember: You can click the matchups, then each label, for more about the surviving proposals. But there are just two days for this round — so don't forget to press the Vote Now button and make all four choices.

After this quarter of the draw gets done, look for future brackets contesting ideas for reforming campaign finance, elections, civic life and Congress. Ultimately, we're looking for our readers to tell us what they view as the most transformative idea for reforming democracy out of 64 leading proposals.




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Keep artificial intelligence out of American classrooms

Fourth-grade students read books in the elementary school at the John F. Kennedy Schule dual-language public school on Sept. 18, 2008, in Berlin.

(Sean Gallup/Getty Images/Tribune Content Agency)

Keep artificial intelligence out of American classrooms

Norway is, by almost any metric, a profoundly successful nation. It’s rich, democratic and relatively corruption-free. It’s not a socialist country, but fans of a robust welfare state and high taxes see much to admire in the very progressive Norwegian model. It also benefits from having the biggest and arguably best-run sovereign wealth fund in the world.

And yet, Norway nearly ruined its children.

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An illustration of orange-colored megaphones, one megaphone in the middle is red and facing the opposite direction of the others.

A growing crisis threatens U.S. public data. Experts warn disappearing federal datasets could undermine science, policy, and democracy—and outline a plan to protect them.

Getty Images, Richard Drury

America's Data Crisis: Saving Trusted Facts Is Essential to Democracy

In March 2026, more than a hundred information and data experts gathered in a converted Christian Science church to confront a problem most Americans never see, but that shapes nearly every public debate we have. The nonprofit Internet Archive convened this national Information Stewardship Forum at their San Francisco headquarters because something fundamental is breaking: the country’s shared foundation of facts.

For decades, the United States has relied on a vast ecosystem of federal data on health, climate, the economy, education, demographics, scientific research, and more. This data is the backbone of journalism, policymaking, scientific discovery, and public accountability. It is how we know whether the air is safe to breathe, whether unemployment is rising or falling, whether a new disease is spreading, or whether a community is being left behind.

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Warrantless Surveillance and TPS for Haitians

Bamilia Delcine Olistin restocks product at Bon Samaritain Grocery, a Haitian-owned grocery, on February 3, 2026 in Springfield, Ohio. A federal judge issued a temporary stay blocking the Trump administration's attempt to strip Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants, but Haitian TPS beneficiaries and residents of Springfield continue to face uncertainty over their protected status.

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Warrantless Surveillance and TPS for Haitians

Warrantless Surveillance

Almost 3 weeks ago, House Republicans appeared to be spitting mad because the Senate had had the temerity to pass a DHS funding agreement overnight by unanimous consent and then recess. The Senate did that because it was the best deal that could get passed. (The House still hasn’t acted on that Senate DHS funding bill.)

But last night, around 2 am, the House passed a 10 day extension of existing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 authorities by unanimous consent and then recessed until Monday. Apparently, it’s fine when the House does it. Why did the House do this? Because it was the best deal that could get passed.

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