Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter.
Sen. Bernie Sanders was the first to bring up anything related to democracy reform. Sen. Kamala Harris was among the few to mention election interference and voting rights.
First debate, part 2: Democracy reform by the numbers
Maybe the moderators couldn't agree on how to pronounce the word "gerrymandering" in pregame warmups. How else to explain no questions about yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on partisan mapmaking?
Also, is election security not a thing anymore?
Moderators once again overlooked anything related to democracy reform during day two of the first round of Democratic presidential primary debates — as they did on day one. Nonetheless, some of the candidates found ways to slip in their views on topics such as voting rights, money in politics and the cycle of corruption in Washington.
The Fulcrum goes inside the numbers from last night's debate.
17 and 15: Minutes and seconds until the first mention of anything related to democracy reform. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont led the way, rallying against big-money special interests.
"The issue is, who has the guts to take on Wall Street, to take on the fossil fuel industry, to take on the big-money interests who have unbelievable influence over the economic and political life of this country?"
5: "Reform" references. The word "reform" was used a handful of times during this debate, but not in reference to democracy reform. Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and California Rep. Eric Swalwell instead spoke about immigration and gun reform.
6: Digs at money in politics. Sanders and Gillibrand dominated the conversation around money in politics during Thursday's debate. While Sanders mostly talked about eliminating special interests, Gillibrand went more in depth by referencing her plan to root out corruption through publicly funded elections.
1: Call for overturning Citizens United. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet was the only candidate to call for invalidating the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling that allowed unlimited outside spending in elections.
3: Russian election interference mentions. California Sen. Kamala Harris, businessman Andrew Yang and Bennet all noted Russia's election interference as America's largest current threat.
3: Mentions of voting rights. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Harris both mentioned the Voting Rights Act, while Bennet spoke about the attack on voting rights in Shelby v. Holder.
1: Nod to gerrymandering. Bennet was alone on the debate stage in acknowledging the issue of gerrymandering in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling on two cases of partisan mapmaking earlier in the day.
"We need to end gerrymandering in Washington. We need to end political gerrymandering in Washington. The court today said they couldn't do anything about it."
3: Candidates who said nothing of democracy reform. Author Marianne Williamson, Hickenlooper and Swalwell chose not to talk about any democracy reform issues during Thursday night's debate.
Reform quotes of the night
Gillibrand: "The truth is, until you go to the root of the corruption, the money in politics, the fact that Washington is run by the special interests, you are never going to solve any of these problems."
Buttigieg: "We've got to fix our democracy before it's too late. Get that right, climate, immigration, taxes, and every other issue gets better."
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter.
More states rolling the dice for election security
The paper trail has become the industry standard for giving voters and elections officials confidence that ballots haven't been hacked. Now comes another back-to-the-future move for boosting security and bolstering public confidence in elections: the return of the 10-sided dice.
The quirky toys found in many high school classrooms and role-playing games are part of a pilot program announced this week in Pennsylvania, which is joining a handful of other states in trying out a math-based system for checking the accuracy of election returns.
The "risk-limiting audit" searches for irregularities in vote tallies and relies on some seriously advanced statistical analysis combined with a bit of analog randomness, which is where auditors using those pentagonal trapezohedrons (the dice) at public audit hearings will ÂÂget involved.
Indiana moving far too slowly to thwart election hacking, lawsuit alleges
Indiana is not moving nearly assertively enough to upgrade its voting machines so they're less vulnerable to hackers, a nonprofit alleges in a federal lawsuit pressing the state to spend millions more before the presidential election.
At issue is the timetable for eliminating the direct recording electronic, or DRE, voting machines that are in use in 58 of the state's 92 counties. The complaint filed Thursday by Indiana Vote by Mail, which advocates for any array of proposals to give Hoosiers easier access to the ballot box, wants to force the state to replace the paperless devices in the next year with machines that produce a voter-verified paper audit trail.
Indiana for now looks to be among just eight states using paperless balloting in 2020, when President Trump will be counting on its 11 electoral votes. The state last went for the Democratic candidate for president in 2008.