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Just the Facts: Canadian Tariffs

Just the Facts: Canadian Tariffs

Project 2025: Implementing Changes to the Department of Defense

Project 2025: Implementing Changes to the Department of Defense

Redistricting

Redistricting

Project 2025: How the White House Plans to Gain Control Over U.S. Elections

Project 2025: How the White House Plans to Gain Control Over U.S. Elections

Project 2025, Phase II: The Bureaucracy

Project 2025, Phase II: The Bureaucracy

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

Off-year record shattered on National Voter Registration Day

National Voter Registration Day logo

Those who participated were a combination of new voters and people who needed to update their registration information.

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Tristiaña Hinton
By Tristiaña HintonOct 04, 2019
Tristiaña Hinton

Audience Development Editor

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The 2020 primaries are just around the corner, and thanks to this year's National Voter Registration Day, an additional 400,000 people are ready to cast their ballots.

The estimated number of registrations is nearly three times that of previous non-election-year events. And while some of these new or renewed registrants can now participate in local and state elections this fall, many are gearing up for important primary races happening as early as February of next year.

Over 4,000 community partners held events where people could sign up in time for their next election, whether it's this fall or next year. The League of Women Voters alone held over 500 voter registration drives.

Celebrities across the country promoted the unofficial holiday, from Ellen and Quincy Jones to Michelle Obama and Newt Gingrich. #NationalVoterRegistrationDay was also the top trending topic on Twitter on Sept. 24.

For anyone who missed National Voter Registration Day and has a local or state election in 2019, Oct. 4 is the deadline in at least 13 states. Voters can register online here.

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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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The United States Supreme Court.

Getty Images / Rudy Sulgan

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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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