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Meet the change leaders: Kevin Johnson, Election Reformers Network

Man at a podium with American Promise logo

Kevin Johnson, speaking at an American Promise event.

Courtesy Kevin Johnson
David L. Nevins
By David L. NevinsMay 14, 2024
David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins serves as co-publisher of The Fulcrum. Additionally, Nevins serves as co-founder and Board Chairman of the Bridge Alliance. Nevins brings business acumen, vision and a tireless this-must-and-can-be-done zeal to the burgeoning movement to bridge divides to transform the political process. As a business leader, Nevins excels at building bridges between people and organizations from the right, left and center for civilized conversation and then action. He co-founded the Bridge Alliance because, as he says, “No matter how well managed and how well funded anyone organization is, significant political reform will not happen without an alliance to further collaborative interactions. Together we can and will raise the collective impact of all.” He is a member of the Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, with a focus on the Aspen Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership, he established and continues to work with The Nevins Democracy Leaders program at Penn State University. Nevins graduated with honors in economics from Penn State in 1969 and received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
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Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Kevin Johnson is co-founder and executive director of Election Reformers Network, a nonpartisan nonprofit advancing innovations that protect elections from polarization. Since 2017, Johnson has led ERN’s research and advocacy programs focused on impartial election administration, independent redistricting and voting rules. He draws on decades of experience supporting emerging democracies overseas and advancing reforms in the United States.

Johnson is also a member of the Election Expert Study Team of the Carter Center, where he assists the U.S. Elections Program. He serves on advisory bodies of American Promise and Rank The Vote.

Johnson co-authored the first comprehensive study of secretary of state conflict of interest and pioneered the top-two proportional approach to Electoral College reform and the nominating commission approach to secretary of state selection. He has published more than two dozen op-eds on a wide range of reform topics in media outlets including The Washington Post, The Hill, Governing, Commonwealth Magazine, The Daily Beast and The Fulcrum.

At the National Democratic Institute, Johnson directed election observations in the West Bank and Gaza, Indonesia, and several countries in Africa, and organized advisory consultations for constitution drafters in new democracies, among other programs. With Common Cause, Johnsonled a successful anti-Citizens-United ballot question campaign in Newton, Mass., and helped organize citizen participation in the highly regarded 2011 Massachusetts redistricting process, among other efforts.

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In 2002, Johnson co-founded Liberty Global Partners, an investment advisory firm focused on venture capital and private equity in emerging markets. At Liberty Global, he has led capital marketing initiatives that raised more than $6 billion for investment funds targeting China, India, Brazil, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia. Johnson has an MBA from Wharton and a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Yale University.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Johnson in April for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series. Watch to learn the full extent of the democracy reform work that Kevin does:

The Fulcrum Democracy Forum Meets Kevin Johnson, Executive Director of Election Reformers Networkyoutu.be

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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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Ranked Choice Voting May Be a Stepping Stone to Proportional Representation

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Getty Images / Hill Street Studios

Ranked Choice Voting May Be a Stepping Stone to Proportional Representation

In the 2024 U.S. election, several states did not pass ballot initiatives to implement Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) despite strong majority support from voters under 65. Still, RCV was defended in Alaska, passed by a landslide in Washington, D.C., and has earned majority support in 31 straight pro-RCV city ballot measures. Still, some critics of RCV argue that it does not enhance and promote democratic principles as much as forms of proportional representation (PR), as commonly used throughout Europe and Latin America.

However, in the U.S. many people have not heard of PR. The question under consideration is whether implementing RCV serves as a stepping stone to PR by building public understanding and support for reforms that move away from winner-take-all systems. Utilizing a nationally representative sample of respondents (N=1000) on the 2022 Cooperative Election Survey (CES), results show that individuals who favor RCV often also know about and back PR. When comparing other types of electoral reforms, RCV uniquely transfers into support for PR, in ways that support for nonpartisan redistricting and the national popular vote do not. These findings can inspire efforts that demonstrate how RCV may facilitate the adoption of PR in the U.S.

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