Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Petition of young voters launched to press Congress for easier ballot access

Voters

The Alliance for Youth Action is pushing Congress to improve access to the ballot, "especially for young voters."

Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

An advocacy coalition is working to galvanize younger voters to pressure Congress to improve voting rights before the presidential election, a cause that remains a decided long shot.

The Alliance for Youth Action, an umbrella organization of groups working to enhance the political power of younger voters, has launched a petition drive urging action on Capitol Hill to "protect voting rights and access to the ballot — especially for young voters."

As of Thursday morning — one week after the launch of the petition — more than 28,000 people had signed on.

The alliance hasn't publicly announced a goal for signatures. But it seems highly likely that no number would change the mind of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said no legislation to revamp the political system will move through the Republican-majority Senate before November 2020.


The petition is timed to coincide with the 54th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act's enactment. "Too many young people still face obstacles to exercising their constitutional right to vote," it says. "It is crucial that young people have a voice in government and the chance to secure a more equitable future."

Members of the alliance have been behind several successful voting rights expansions at the state and local level, including boosting young voter registration and creating the nation's first automatic voter registration system in Oregon, enacting Colorado laws permitting online registration and pre-registration by people as young as 16, and bringing same-day, online and automatic registration to Chicago.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Virtually all the items on the alliance's wish list for boosting the youth vote nationwide — automatic voter registration for anyone who gets a new driver's license, pre-registration for high schoolers, longer early voting calendars, Election Day registration, voting by mail — would be instituted in every state under the comprehensive political process overhaul House Democrats passed this spring. But that bill, HR 1, is tops on McConnell's roster of legislative dislikes.

Read More

"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump
text
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump

Donald Trump wasted no time when he returned to the White House. Within hours, he signed over 200 executive orders, rapidly dismantling years of policy and consolidating control with the stroke of a pen. But the frenzy of reversals was only the surface. Beneath it lies a deeper, more troubling transformation: presidential elections have become all-or-nothing battles, where the victor rewrites the rules of government and the loser’s agenda is annihilated.

And it’s not just the orders. Trump’s second term has unleashed sweeping deportations, the purging of federal agencies, and a direct assault on the professional civil service. With the revival of Schedule F, regulatory rollbacks, and the targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the federal bureaucracy is being rigged to serve partisan ideology. Backing him is a GOP-led Congress, too cowardly—or too complicit—to assert its constitutional authority.

Keep ReadingShow less
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.

Keep ReadingShow less
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.

Keep ReadingShow less