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Alexander Vanderklipp

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    Judicial

    Reframing judicial elections — not “who should we elect,” but “why should we elect them at all?”

    Alexander Vanderklipp
    March 16, 2023
    Reframing judicial elections — not “who should we elect,” but “why should we elect them at all?”
    Getty Images

    Alexander Vanderklipp is a Senior Fellow at Election Reformers Network, where he contributes to projects on impartial election administration, independent redistricting, and election dispute resolution. He is the author of the recent policy brief, “Why do we elect judges? Wisconsin’s highly partisan race begs the question.”

    The nation is watching Wisconsin as a state Supreme Court race with major implications for democratic outcomes—at both state and national levels—becomes an all-out spending war on behalf of the liberal and conservative candidates. No one expects the record-breaking spending or heated partisan rhetoric to die down until the race in this crucial swing state is decided.

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    judicial elections

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    Voting

    Jan. 6 votes show the link between primary system and more extreme views in Congress

    Alexander Vanderklipp
    March 31, 2022
    Rep. Matt Gaetz

    Rep. Matt Gaetz is among the 76 percent of Republicans who won their first primary with less than 40 percent of the vote and objected to electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania.

    Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

    Vanderklipp is a senior fellow at the Election Reformers Network.

    Only hours after the riot of Jan. 6, 2021, with the calls to “stop the steal” still reverberating under the Capitol Rotunda, 139 Republican members of the House of Representatives voted to oppose the valid electoral votes sent from Arizona and Pennsylvania, in effect endorsing the rallying cry of the insurrection.

    Seventy-two Republicans voted the other way, supporting the counting of the electoral votes. What are the important characteristics that distinguish those who objected from those who did not? Some are predictable. Members may have felt more pressure to object if they came from districts and states that voted more heavily for Donald Trump. Members with fewer years in Congress objected at a higher rate, perhaps with a greater need than more veteran colleagues to make a name for themselves.

    A new analysis finds another unexpected characteristic many objectors have in common, one that points to a structural danger in our election system. Objectors were more likely to have entered Congress without majority support in their initial primary. This insight arises from an Election Reformers Network database tracking members’ paths to Congress, and in particular how they fared in the primary election the year they entered Congress, before the power of incumbency kicked in.

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