Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Rank choice voting: A day of wins

Rank choice voting: A day of wins
Getty Images

FairVote, a nonpartisan organization, recently announced that election day 2023 was an historic election year for ranked choice voting (RCV). Ranked choice voting is the fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform in the nation; with recent ballot wins, it has won 27 city ballot measures in a row.

Ranked choice voting, sometimes known as instant runoff voting, gives voters the option to rank candidates in order of preference, first, second, third and so forth. Ranked-choice voting advocates say it will help prevent the increasingly polarized election campaigns, increase the number of women and minority candidates running for office, and reduce negative campaigning.


Three cities in Michigan – Kalamazoo, East Lansing, and Royal Oak – voted to adopt RCV. 71 percent of Kalamazoo voters, 52 percent of East Lansing voters, and 51 percent of Royal Oak voters voted for RCV. Add to this that both Minnetonka, MN and Easthampton, MA voted to keep or expand RCV and you have a clean sweep for ranked choice voting this past election day

RCV was used successfully in eleven cities across six states, including for the first time in Boulder, CO. Ten more cities will use RCV this month, when Utah holds its Election Day on November 21.

“Election Day 2023 showed once again that voters want ranked choice voting,” said Deb Otis, Director of Research and Policy at FairVote. “American voters are dissatisfied with our politics, and in 27 city ballot measures in a row, they’ve said ‘yes’ to better choices, better campaigns, and better representation. Everywhere it’s used, voters like and understand RCV, taking advantage of the opportunity to vote honestly and express more choices. We’ll continue this progress later this month in Utah and again in 2024, when at least Oregon and Nevada will vote on adopting RCV statewide and five states and territories are poised to use RCV for their presidential primaries.”

Ranked choice voting continues to grow across the nation, moving from just ten cities in 2016 to approximately 50 cities, counties, and states now (including the states of Alaska and Maine).

Larry Diamond, the former director of Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law has concluded that ranked-choice voting is the most promising reform to democratize and depolarize politics in America.

“We are really settling on ranked-choice voting as the most promising reform to democratize and depolarize our politics. I think it’s not only here to stay but that it’s gaining support across the country. A lot of research shows that when you, as a candidate, go negative, you hurt public perceptions of yourself, but you do more damage to your opponent, and in plurality elections, this tradeoff can pay off,” says Diamond, the Stanford researcher. “But since candidates are forced to rely on second and third-place votes in ranked-choice elections, negative campaigning can open the way for a third candidate to gain support. It becomes much more costly to go negative since you risk losing your ability to pick up second-preference votes, and it actually does more harm than good,”

As more and more cities and states adopt ranked choice voting, we’ll learn quickly whether RVC is indeed paying dividends to lessen polarization in America.

Read More

Communication concept with multi colored abstract people icons.

Research shows that emotional, cognitive, and social mechanisms drive both direct and indirect contact, offering scalable ways to reduce political polarization.

Getty Images, Eoneren

“Direct” and “Indirect” Contact Methods Likely Work in Similar Ways, so They Should Both Be Effective

In a previous article, we argued that efforts to improve the political environment should reach Americans as media consumers, in addition to seeking public participation. Reaching Americans as media consumers uses media like film, TV, and social media to change what Americans see and hear about fellow Americans across the political spectrum. Participant-based efforts include dialogues and community-based activities that require active involvement.

In this article, we show that the mechanisms underlying each type of approach are quite similar. The categories of mechanisms we cover are emotional, cognitive, relational, and repetitive. We use the terms from the academic literature, “direct” and “indirect” contact, which are fairly similar to participant and media consumer approaches, respectively.

Keep ReadingShow less
Millions Could Lose Housing Aid Under Trump Plan

Photo illustration by Alex Bandoni/ProPublica. Source images: Chicago History Museum and eobrazy

Getty Images

Millions Could Lose Housing Aid Under Trump Plan

Some 4 million people could lose federal housing assistance under new plans from the Trump administration, according to experts who reviewed drafts of two unpublished rules obtained by ProPublica. The rules would pave the way for a host of restrictions long sought by conservatives, including time limits on living in public housing, work requirements for many people receiving federal housing assistance and the stripping of aid from entire families if one member of the household is in the country illegally.

The first Trump administration tried and failed to implement similar policies, and renewed efforts have been in the works since early in the president’s second term. Now, the documents obtained by ProPublica lay out how the administration intends to overhaul major housing programs that serve some of the nation’s poorest residents, with sweeping reforms that experts and advocates warn will weaken the social safety net amid historically high rents, home prices and homelessness.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump’s Ultimatums and the Erosion of Presidential Credibility

Donald Trump

YouTube

Trump’s Ultimatums and the Erosion of Presidential Credibility

On Friday, October 3rd, President Donald Trump issued a dramatic ultimatum on Truth Social, stating this is the “LAST CHANCE” for Hamas to accept a 20-point peace proposal backed by Israel and several Arab nations. The deadline, set for Sunday at 6:00 p.m. EDT, was framed as a final opportunity to avoid catastrophic consequences. Trump warned that if Hamas rejected the deal, “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas,” and that its fighters would be “hunted down and killed.”

Ordinarily, when a president sets a deadline, the world takes him seriously. In history, Presidential deadlines signal resolve, seriousness, and the weight of executive authority. But with Trump, the pattern is different. His history of issuing ultimatums and then quietly backing off has dulled the edge of his threats and raised questions about their strategic value.

Keep ReadingShow less