• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up

Jeremy Gruber

    FollowUnfollowFollowing
    Voting

    Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

    Jeremy Gruber
    December 28, 2022
    The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

    "So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote, I do not possess myself," the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1957. "I cannot make up my mind – it is made up for me."

    Henryk Archive/Donaldson Collection/Getty Images

    As 2022 draws to a close, The Fulcrum has invited leaders of democracy reform organizations to share their hopes and plans for the coming year. This is the seventh in the series.

    Gruber is the senior vice president of Open Primaries. He previously worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and several other civil rights organizations.

    Independent voters decided nearly every outcome in the midterm elections and sent many “election deniers” packing. Their reward is that 20 million of them – including millions of voters of color – will be shut out of voting in the 2024 presidential primaries. That number could double if efforts to close the primaries accelerate in 2023.

    The civil rights community, which has long insisted that ours is a democracy in progress, has always been at the forefront of the fight for justice in the United States. But it has continued to remain silent on the question of full voting rights for independent voters.

    Keep ReadingShow less
    reform in 2023

    Join an Upcoming Event

    View All Events
    Threats to democracy

    The threat to democracy that no one’s talking about

    Jeremy Gruber
    Harry Kresky
    October 04, 2022
    Tennessee primaries

    Tennessee is one of three Southern states to pass a resolution requiring party registration and closed primaries.

    J. Countess/Getty Images

    Gruber is the senior vice president of Open Primaries. Kresky is counsel to Independentvoting.org. They, along with Michael Hardy, are the authors of “Let All Voters Vote: Independents and the Expansion of Voting Rights in the United States.”

    Few people would characterize the conservative South as enlightened when it comes to electoral politics. But the truth is that in some respects it is more advanced than many Democratic strongholds. While states like Oregon and New York continue to employ closed party primary elections, even as the electorate becomes more independent and more demanding of real choices at the polls, states from Alabama to Missouri have dispensed with party registration and employed open primaries for years.

    These states may lean Republican at the ballot box, as key Northern states lean Democratic, but they have carved out the space for voters to define themselves and their voting choices. These systems are now under attack all across the South and, if successfully repealed, could spell a descent into authoritarian rule that we’ve barely begun to grasp.

    Keep ReadingShow less
    open primaries
    Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
    Confirm that you are not a bot.
    ×
    Follow
    Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
    Confirm that you are not a bot.
    ×
    Follow

    Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

    The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

    Contribute
    Contributors

    Policymakers must address worsening civil unrest post Roe

    Sarah K. Burke

    Video: How to salvage U.S. democracy from the "tyranny of the minority"

    Our Staff

    What "Progress" should look like, and what we get wrong

    Damien De Pyle

    The long kiss goodnight: Nancy Pelosi and the protracted decay of public office

    Kevin Frazier

    Demanding corporate responsibility for food system challenges

    C.Anne Long

    Our two political parties: A resemblance to WrestleMania

    Leland R. Beaumont
    latest News

    Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

    Michael Beckel
    Ariana Rojas
    19h

    The alchemy of laughter

    Pedro Silva
    20h

    Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

    Dave Anderson
    20h

    Learning to make “the right call” in the right moments

    Lisa Kay Solomon
    19 September

    Time warp: Pandemics and politics

    Amy Lockard
    19 September

    Tapping the common sense on immigration

    Steven Kull
    Evan Charles Lewitus
    JP Thomas
    18 September
    Videos
    Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

    Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

    Our Staff
    Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

    Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

    Our Staff
    Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

    Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

    Our Staff
    Video: The history of Labor Day

    Video: The history of Labor Day

    Our Staff
    Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

    Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

    Our Staff
    Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

    Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

    Our Staff
    Podcasts

    Podcast: How states hold fair elections

    Our Staff
    14 September

    Podcast: The MAGA Bubble, Bidenonmics and Playing the Victim

    Debilyn Molineaux
    David Riordan
    12 September

    Podcast: Defending the founding principles of our government

    Our Staff
    07 September

    Podcast: The continuing effects of summer heat and student loan repayments

    Our Staff
    05 September
    Recommended
    Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

    Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

    State
    The alchemy of laughter

    The alchemy of laughter

    Comedy
    Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

    Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

    Contributors
    Learning to make “the right call” in the right moments

    Learning to make “the right call” in the right moments

    Big Picture
    Time warp: Pandemics and politics

    Time warp: Pandemics and politics

    Big Picture
    Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

    Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

    Big Picture