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Geoff Pallay works out of his South Carolina home to be closer to his two children, including 5-year-old Cameron.
Meet the reformer: Geoff Pallay, a political encyclopedia wizard
Geoff Pallay is the editor in chief of Ballotpedia, a nonprofit and nonpartisan online political encyclopedia created a dozen years ago to provide a comprehensive chronicling of federal, state and local politics, elections, and public policy. He was hired in 2010 as a staff writer covering state legislatures and has had the top newsroom job since 2015. Originally from New Jersey, Pallay, 35, lives in Charleston, S.C., with his wife, Megan, and their two children. His answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
We preserve and expand knowledge about politics by providing objective information about federal, state and local politics.
"For Trump, impeachment is likely, removal is dubious, and a re-election campaign is all but certain," write Kristen Nyman and Anthony Marcum.
Three impeachment scenarios dangerous for democracy
Nyman is a government affairs specialist and Marcum is a governance fellow at the R Street Institute, a nonpartisan and pro-free-market public policy research organization.
Imagine the following: Early next year the House of Representatives impeaches President Trump. One of these three scenarios is likely to follow.
Behind curtain number one, the president is acquitted at the subsequent trial in the Senate. He then takes the stage in Charlotte, N.C., to accept the Republican nomination for president in 2020.
Deepfakers beware: Do it in California or Texas and you'll be in deep trouble
California has decided to throw a flag on people who post deepfake videos of candidates running for public office.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation that prohibits distribution of these artificially created or manipulated videos within 60 days of an election unless the video carries a statement disclosing it has been altered. Texas enacted a similar law late last month.
That the nation's most populous state, where lawmaking power is entirely in Democrats' hands, would mirror a new policy in the third-largest state, formulated entirely by Republicans, is a clear indictor that the new world of deepfakes is causing big-time bipartisan worry among politicians. But some experts question whether the laws will survive legal challenges.
"To the casual observer, having the ability to rank all candidates from best to worst may seem like a good thing, on the surface," writes Mike Shannon.
Here’s why political independents should hate ranked-choice voting
Shannon is the founder of Negative.vote, which is promoting statewide ballot initiatives to allow voters to register firm opposition to one candidate in each race.
Many reformers are partisans in disguise. Here's one way you can tell: If someone advocates for something called ranked-choice voting, they either intend to disempower independent voters by eliminating pesky independent or reform candidates to the benefit of the two-party system, or they don't fully understand how RCV works.
Many professors advocate for ranked-choice voting, which is decoy reform at best. We could just as well prohibit all independent or opposition candidates from getting on the ballot in the first place, as Russia itself has done, because that is the ultimate effect of RCV. It is designed to eliminate independent candidates.
