Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Meet the change leaders: Eric Bronner, veteran and political reformer

Opinion

Eric Bronner
Courtesy Veterans for All Vets

Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Eric Bronner on Jan. 18 for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series.

Bronner is the founder and chief operating officer of Veterans for All Voters – a veteran-led, cross-partisan community that is mobilizing military veterans to be advocates for election innovations that unlock competition, make our politics less toxic and encourage the government to be more responsible.


Bronner graduated with honors from the United States Naval Academy in 1997 and served on active duty for eight years as a naval flight officer. Before discovering his passion for election reforms, Bronner was a successful real estate broker and attorney in St. Louis, Mo. For three years, Bronner was a board leader with Show Me Integrity, a cross-partisan democracy reform organization that in 2020 helped bring an innovative, nonpartisan approval voting system to St. Louis.

After the 2020 election, a fellow veteran saw Bronner’s passion for political reforms and recommended getting more veterans involved. Early in 2021, he put together an informal advisory board of veterans from across the country and political spectrum to investigate this opportunity. They discovered a true “white space” between the 40,000-plus veteran service organizations and thousands of civic health, bridge building and reform organizations.

As such, Veterans for All Voters launched publicly, in Wisconsin, in October 2021. Since then, VAV has mobilized over 3,200 veterans and supporters in all 50 states. In 2022, VAV was a coalition partner with the successful “ Yes on 3! ” ballot amendment campaign to bring “final-five voting” to Nevada. Now, in 2024, VAV’s 300-plus veteran leaders are supporting over 20 different active reform campaigns in cities and states across the country. These efforts are opposed by both major political parties.

Watch the interview to learn the full extent of Bronner’s remarkable work and perhaps you’ll become more civically engaged as well.

Eric Bronner- Veterans for All Votersyoutu.be


Read More

Person looking at computer screen at work.

Brenda Núñez, voter registration supervisor for Nueces County, shows the home screen of the state's voter registration system in 2024. Election officials say they're still struggling to use the system, known as TEAM, to complete essential tasks.

(==Gabriel Cárdenas for Votebeat

Election Officials Are Scrambling To Process Voter Registration Backlog Using a System They Say Does Not Work

At 6 p.m. a few days after the state sent Randall County election administrator Shannon Lackey a backlog of 3,388 of voter registration records, she was still at her desk, processing them after a full day of work.

She planned to stay late and get as much done as she could, then keep working from home. Lackey, whose department has five employees, isn’t expecting overtime pay or compensatory time off to make up for the extra work caused by the state error.

Keep ReadingShow less
multiethnic American voters participating in the US election, showcasing the concept of choice in a democracy

Presidents who lost the popular vote often faced economic turmoil. See the pattern from Harrison to Trump and how a 50-state strategy could change it.

Alan Mazzocco/Getty Images

Path Forward from Economic Consequences of Non-Popular Vote Presidents

While losing the popular vote does not inherently cause economic ruin, the structural political weakness of entering office without a democratic majority mandate often compounded the economic challenges their administrations faced. These terms were marked by distinct economic hardships, structural imbalances, or severe financial crises.

Destabilizing Partisan Protectionism

Keep ReadingShow less
people filling out their ballots at voting booths and submitting their vote.

Independent voters may hand Democrats control of Congress this fall — but as history shows, they'll get nothing in return. Here's how to change that.

Pressmaster/Getty Images

Swinging Outcomes Is Not Enough

The midterms are six weeks away, and polls predict that independent voters, who broke for Donald Trump in 2024, are planning on voting for Democrats by wide margins. Among Latinos, the numbers are staggering, to the point that the Republican gerrymanders in Florida and Texas may actually result in Democratic victories.

If the Democrats take control of Congress, it will be because of independents. And what do independents get in return?

Keep ReadingShow less
Diverse People At Voting Booth. Vote Here Elections Sign

A political scientist examines how automatic voter registration is quietly turning non-affiliation into America's largest voting bloc.

AndreyPopov/Getty Images

When Neither Party Is the Default: Rethinking Representation As America’s Electorate Changes

For most of my career as a political scientist, representation was the central theme of my teaching and research. Early on, I studied how legislators understood their responsibilities to constituents — whether they saw themselves as delegates carrying out constituent mandates, trustees exercising independent judgment, or politicos combining both. That work asked a question that still matters: What does it mean to represent the public in a changing democracy?

Today I find myself asking a related question: What happens when the electorate changes but the institutions built to represent it do not?

Keep ReadingShow less