Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

No need to dim the lights on new voting machines, Georgia judge rules

Georgia voting machines

A Georgia judge has rejected a request to mandate paper ballots in upcoming elections. The Coalition for Good Governance claims the new voting touchscreens are so large and bright that they can be read from a distance, violating privacy rules.

Georgia Secretary of State

A Georgia judge has rejected a legal challenge to the state's new voting machines from a group that argued the touchscreens are so big and bright that they violated privacy rules.

The decision means more than $100 million worth of new voting equipment may be used across the state starting Monday, when early voting begins in the Democratic presidential primary.

Earlier this week, the Colorado-based Coalition for Good Governance and others asked for an emergency order requiring paper ballots to be used in a runoff election for a state Senate seat and the state's presidential primary.


Sumter County Superior Court Chief Judge R. Rucker Smith denied the request Wednesday, acting quickly because early voting in the legislative contest had begun and the start of the presidential balloting is imminent.

Tuesday is the runoff between Republicans Carden Summers and Jim Quinn for a legislative seat in the state's southeastern corner. Presidential primary day is March 24.

The plaintiffs argued the new screens can be read as far as 30 feet away. They said changing the brightness of the computers, the angle of the screens or the type size was not sufficient. And the state cannot solve the problem by hanging curtains because Georgia law bans anything like a booth or curtain around the voting devices that would prevent election officials from overseeing the voting process.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Election officials said the solution was as simple as positioning the equipment so the screens face a wall.

Under the new voting system, Georgians will choose candidates on a touchscreen and then print out the results. The printout will then be fed into an optical scanning device.

Last March, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law requiring new voting machines for the entire state. The new devices had already come under earlier criticism because the paper ballots display a barcode for tabulating the ballot and potentially double-checking results. But voters cannot read the codes to know whether the printouts match their choices.

The Coalition for Good Governance filed a separate lawsuit on that issue. It is still pending in federal court.

Read More

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries
person in blue denim jeans and white sneakers standing on gray concrete floor
Photo by Phil Scroggs on Unsplash

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries

With the stroke of a pen, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham enfranchised almost 350,000 independent voters recently by signing a bill for open primaries. Just a few years ago, bills to open the primaries were languishing in the state legislature, as they have historically across the country. But as more and more voters leave both parties and declare their independence, the political system is buckling. And as independents begin to organize and speak out, it’s going to continue to buckle in their direction.

In 2004, there were 120,000 independent voters in New Mexico. A little over 10 years later, when the first open primary bill was introduced, that number had more than doubled. That bill never even got a hearing. But today the number of independents in New Mexico and across the country is too big to ignore. Independents are the largest group of voters in ten states and the second-largest in most others. That’s putting tremendous pressure on a system that wasn’t designed with them in mind.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.

Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand Placing Ballot in Box With American Flag
Getty Images, monkeybusinessimages

We Can Fix This: Our Politics Really Can Work – These Stories Show How

As American politics polarizes ever further, voters across the political spectrum agree that our current system is not delivering for the American people. Eighty-five percent of Americans feel most elected officials don’t care what people like them think. Eighty-eight percent of them say our political system is broken.

Whether it’s the quality and safety of their kids’ schools, housing affordability and rising homelessness, scarce and pricey healthcare, or any number of other issues that touch Americans’ everyday lives, the lived experience of polarization comes from such problems—and elected officials’ failure to address them.

Keep ReadingShow less