Category: election reform

Showing an independent streak in keeping with Maine’s political tradition, Sen. Rick Bennett (R–Oxford) broke ranks with his party this week to join 91 Democrats in supporting a bill that would finally fulfill the will of Maine voters: implementing ranked choice voting (RCV) in all state general elections.

As the New York City Charter Revision Commission considers a wide breadth of reforms to city policy, one reform in particular is catching the attention of both voters and the media: Ending the city’s use of closed partisan primaries.

New Jersey will hold its statewide primary elections on Tuesday, June 10, to determine who will appear in the general election for the highest offices in the state, including governor. These are important elections – and yet they will be decided by a marginal percentage of voters.

Concord is the latest town in Massachusetts to signal it wants to adopt ranked choice voting after residents overwhelmingly voted for Article 28 in a town meeting Wednesday. The vote comes not long after the Boston City Council advanced its own ranked choice voting measure.

On May 20, the Maine House of Representatives voted 76–71 to withdraw the state from the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), reversing course just over a year after Maine became the 17th jurisdiction to join the agreement.

South Bay voters are navigating a monsoon of negative, and often misleading, political ads tied to the July 1 runoff election for San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors. But here’s the kicker: taxpayers are footing a $4.6 million bill for this completely unnecessary second round of voting.

A surprise last-minute bill to open primary elections to Nevada’s largest voting bloc, registered unaffiliated voters, moved quickly through the state legislature and was approved by a majority of lawmakers on the last day of the legislative session Monday.

Pressure continues to mount for New York City to change its primary election laws to include all eligible voters, regardless of party, as independent voters rally behind a simple message: "No voter should be required to join a political party to vote."

More than 330,000 independent voters will have access to state-administered primary elections in future New Mexico elections after the legislature passed SB 16 in March to end the state’s use of closed primaries.

A new lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Open Primaries Education Fund along with the law firm, Angor, Rapaport, & Skainy (DATRS), asserts that Maryland is violating its own constitution and the voting rights of nearly 1 million independent voters in the state by denying them access to taxpayer-funded primary elections.