Articles by George Pillsbury

The “wave” election swept in a few Democrats, but — like most U.S. elections — rolled over democracy’s basic premise that elections should offer meaningful competition and choices for voters. The newly published America Goes to the Polls report on the midterm’s certified voter turnout of the 50 states found the large majority of House elections were not competitive. Over 60% were uncontested or won by landslide margins of 20% or more. While the midterm did see more House seats contested compare...

Voters in Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah are voting on whether to hand control over drawing electoral districts to independent redistricting commissions. With two weeks to go, here’s a rundown of what these ballot questions would do, who’s for and against, and their prospects of winning. Fair Maps Colorado - Amendments Y and Z In Colorado, there are twin constitutional amendments on the ballot backed by Fair Maps Colorado. Amendment Y sets up a multi-partisan independent redistrictin...

The success of Maine as the first state to use ranked choice voting statewide has brought newfound national attention to ranked choice voting. There’s much to like in this replacement to our fractious, problematic, and outdated plurality voting method. Voters can vote for their top choice without fear of splitting the vote. More candidates and parties can compete without the label of “spoiler.” Campaigns become more civil and less prone to negative attacks. The winner is the consensus, majority ...

Earlier this year, Utah and Washington quietly joined 14 other states that have eliminated the use of registration deadlines as a final cutoff to be able to vote. The congruent actions of a red state and blue state bring the number of states that allow voters to register or update a registration when they go to vote to nearly one in three. It’s a critical threshold that could spell the end of voter registration deadlines as we’ve known them for 100 years. Enabling voters to address and fix reg...

Partisan gerrymandering. Money in politics. The Electoral College. Undue restrictions on who votes and how we vote. Every contentious election issue discussed today was either inherited from 18th-century England or came out of a compromise in our democracy’s incubation when there were few voters and...