Photo by Allison Saeng on Unsplash.

Today, I am proud to share an exciting milestone in my journey as an advocate for democracy and electoral reform. 

The Chamberlain Project, an organization I co-founded with Peter Ackerman a decade ago, has been dissolved. The Chamberlain Boards have voted to combine all of Chamberlain’s associated entities, including Americans Elect, Level the Playing Field, the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, and Citizens to End SuperPACs, with the Foundation for Independent Voter Education (FIVE), a nonprofit sister-organization of the Independent Voter Project that Chamberlain has been aligned with since 2014. 

The merging of Chamberlain and FIVE is the product of a ten-year relationship, which began when Peter and I learned about and researched the unlikely and remarkable success of the Top-Two Primary initiative in California.  

This step marks a new chapter in our shared mission to foster a more representative democracy through critical electoral reforms.

A Decade-Long Journey In Reform

The late Peter Ackerman, an expert in nonviolent civil resistance and a driving force behind reform efforts like Maine’s “More Voice” initiatives that brought the United States its first statewide Ranked Choice Voting system, said that even the best ideas are accepted in stages: 

The first stage is, “That is the worst idea I have ever heard.” The next stage is somewhat more neutral, “Oh, I’ve heard of that.” Finally, if it’s a really good idea, he would say, “It transforms into something that was always their idea to begin with and that they had the same idea all along.”

I had the honor of working with Peter Ackerman when the Chamberlain Project began leading a citizen’s initiative in 2014 to make ranked choice voting the law in Maine. Our goal was to educate the public about the problems with first-past-the-post voting and promote instant runoffs that produce results that genuinely reflect the people's will. 

Together, we won campaigns and lawsuits that made Maine the first state to adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) for all statewide federal elections, including presidential elections. RCV allows voters to rank candidates by preference, ensuring winners achieve majority support and reducing the impact of vote-splitting.

We had long been looking for ways to disrupt the dominance of the hyper-partisan political system, from Americans Elect, to Level the Playing Field, to supporting Angus King’s first independent run for U.S. Senate in 2012.

I served as an advisory board member at Americans Elect and later became CEO of its successor, Level the Playing Field. Americans Elect sought to create a new pathway for nominating presidential candidates through an online primary system. Its innovative approach influenced subsequent reform efforts. 

Level the Playing Field (LPF) focused on reforming the presidential debate process to ensure independent and third-party candidates had a fair chance to compete. By challenging the dominance of the two major parties in presidential debates, LPF aimed to increase voter choice and diversify the political landscape.

But neither trying to get independent ballot access for president, trying to get a third voice on the presidential debate stage, nor actually electing an independent to the US Senate got to the core of voter frustrations.

Voters were incredibly frustrated that if they supported any candidate that was not nominated by either major party, they would be “wasting their vote” by picking a spoiler.

Just ask Google, “ways to get around the spoiler issue,” and you will discover ranked choice voting. That is what led us to explore ways to give voters more meaningful choices.

However, when we first posed the question, “Are You Ready for Ranked Choice Voting?” to several thousand Mainers in November 2014, the universal response was, “What?” No one knew what we were even saying. 

But when we simply said that we were collecting signatures to allow more choices and more voices in politics, to fight against extreme partisanship, to give marginalized candidates in Maine the fair chance to compete, more than 67,000 Mainers signed our petition to change the state's election system.

Senator Dick Woodbury, who as an independent candidate won two terms in the Maine state Senate, introduced a bill in the Maine Legislature to bring more choice to Maine – but it failed. So, we met at The Crooked Mile Cafe on Milk Street in Portland, and together decided to launch the nonpartisan Committee for Ranked Choice Voting.

In Maine, as in 24 other states, we are blessed with the right to initiate laws as citizens. Using the Maine Constitution as a guide, we began the process, with a huge lift and list from former Portland Rep. Diane Russell and many others.

We then got in touch with IVC Media’s Anthony Astolfi and Chad Peace, who had helped IVP succeed in California, teamed with veteran media strategists Will Robinson and Tierney Hunt, and recruited a team of lawyers from Drummond Woodsum and Bernstein Shur.

Kyle Bailey, a local strategist, stepped up to manage the campaign, determined to remain nonpartisan and relentlessly positive. Pollster Lisa Grove came up with the slogan, “More Voice.”

Our long-shot initiative was passed by Maine voters in 2016. Ranked Choice Voting became the law of the land on January 7, 2017. We were jubilant. Finally, a system that would allow people to vote for the person they liked the most without fear of electing the person they liked the least.

But just four days after ranked choice voting became law, we realized that laws passed by citizens can just as easily be repealed by politicians in the state legislature. It had never occurred to us that this would happen, but on October 17, 2017, in a special late-night session, the legislature killed our citizen law.

Luckily, in Maine we also have something called a People’s Veto, allowing citizens to reverse an action of the legislature. From the Senate gallery on the night of the repeal, we sent out a press release announcing our intentions to try again. 

Over the next 88 days, and through a series of brutal winter storms, 1,800 volunteers collected 80,000 more signatures to save ranked choice voting in Maine. We got the second referendum on the ballot on June 12, 2018, and this time it passed by an even wider margin.

We won a series of lawsuits at both the state and federal level thanks to Attorneys Kate Knox, James Monteleone, and Mike Bosse at Bernstein Shur and Maine became the first state in the country to use ranked choice voting to elect candidates for the US Senate and House. 

The first two elections in 2018 went off without a hitch, even though Maine’s secretary of state predicted that there would be “cars burning in the streets,” if he were forced to implement the law.

In 2019, we worked to expand ranked choice voting to include presidential elections in Maine.  The powerful State Senate President Troy Jackson was now squarely on the side of the people, and Governor Janet Mills allowed Senator Jackson’s bill to become law without her signature. 

In November 2020, Maine voters became the first in the nation to rank our choices for president.

That same day, Alaska voters passed a nonpartisan primary initiative that – you guessed it – allowed voters to rank 4 candidates in the general election. Their citizen initiative was even more innovative than the one we had worked so hard for in Maine. 

Scott Kendall had been inspired not only by Maine’s success but also by Katherine Gehl, the author of The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy and co-Chair of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers, who posited that ranked choice voting was not enough on its own. It needed to be combined with open, nonpartisan primaries. 

In 2020, Alaskans voted to open their primary elections to all voters, regardless of party, and then to send the top 4 candidates to the general election ballot where voters could rank all, or some, of the candidates.

In 2022, Nevada voters took it a step further, voting to open their primaries to all voters and to send the top 5 vote-getters to the general elections. We think Gehl’s “Final Five” Voting reform is an idea whose time has come.  

Indeed, in 2024, the Voters of Alaska voted to protect Final Four Voting from repeal. “This is what people want, they want more choices, they want more options, and this is how you give it to them,” said Chad Peace, founder of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers.

Watching the reform, we fought so hard for in Maine spread to Alaska and Nevada and back to California again is incredibly gratifying. The improvements and interactions we see today hold the promise of finally getting America out of the nasty partisan-driven political rhetoric that has gridlocked our country. 

"I am so excited for the future. Our laboratories of democracy will prove these ideas right - or prove what needs to change to make them right. And we will create the system changes needed to help our government achieve the results that we Americans deserve," said Gehl.

Since 2016, Gehl has been instrumental in promoting and expanding the work of the Chamberlain Project.

Throughout this journey, Chamberlain has also taken inspiration from Stanford Professor Larry Diamond, who highlighted the success of RCV in Maine in his book *Ill Winds*. Diamond fully understands RCV’s potential to reduce polarization, empower independent and third-party candidates, and foster governance that better reflects the electorate’s will.

I’ve also had the privilege of knowing Harvard Professor Larry Lessig, which is why, in 2024, the Chamberlain Project took on a new challenge as the fiscal sponsor and organizer of "Citizens to End Super PACs," a campaign that resulted in the passage of Maine’s Question 1 on November 5, 2024. 

This citizen's initiative capped individual contributions to super PACs that make independent expenditures for candidates at $5,000 per donor annually. 

On Election Day, Question 1 passed with an overwhelming 74.9% of the vote—the highest level of support for any citizen initiative in Maine’s history. We got more votes (600,191) than any initiative in the history of Maine. We assert through a free and fair vote here in Maine that we, the people, have the right to stand up to big money in politics, and we believe it is something worth fighting for. 

Question 1 was the only statewide measure in the country in 2024 that focused on campaign finance reform. A lawsuit was just filed to stop Maine from implementing the law, but as I said during the campaign, “This is what we want and look forward to... We relish this fight. This is how the sausage gets made in a democracy." 

The Supreme Court has never addressed whether SuperPACs are constitutionally mandated. The people of Maine, by supporting this initiative, want to give the Court the chance to address the question — and finally, correct this awful mistake. 

Merging With FIVE

Election reform has come a long way in the past decade. The Independent Voter Project (IVP) is most well-known for authoring California’s “top-two” nonpartisan primary passed by the voters in 2010. 

The group also authored a successful San Diego initiative in 2016, Measure K, that prevented candidates from winning elections in low turnout primaries where special interests and political parties excel at manipulating outcomes before most people vote.

FIVE is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization that serves as the educational arm of the IVP, which advocates for nonpartisan election reforms. FIVE’s work includes independent research, voter education, public forums, and digital media initiatives. 

Together with IVP, it publishes Independent Voter News (IVN), a platform offering unfiltered political news and policy analysis. FIVE’s transparency and effectiveness have been recognized with a 3-star rating from Charity Navigator.

Since 2010, FIVE has actively worked to reform the primary election system in California by supporting the implementation of the top-two primary system. Under this system, all candidates compete in a single primary regardless of party affiliation, and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. 

This reform encourages broader voter participation, reduces polarization, and ensures elected officials represent a wider spectrum of constituents.

The top-two primary has already demonstrated its potential to bring more moderate candidates into office and promote collaboration across party lines. FIVE has been instrumental in educating voters, policymakers, and stakeholders about the benefits of this system and continues to advocate for similar reforms in other states. 

By fostering open and inclusive elections, FIVE strives to create a political environment that better serves the needs of all citizens.

Today, there are rumblings about reform in California that have their roots in a decade-long journey that started on the West Coast, found fellow travelers in Maine, and is now finding its way back to California after stops in Alaska, Nevada, and Colorado. Nonpartisan reform activists are testing the waters in some San Diego County cities, including Carlsbad, Vista, Chula Vista and San Diego.

It has been my privilege to have worked with the leaders of FIVE on each and every one of the projects described above, and it is a tremendous honor to be moving forward into a future with our entities under a single banner.

The consolidation of the Chamberlain Project with FIVE marks an important step forward. Together, we are doubling down on our commitment to transformative electoral reforms—from instant runoff voting to campaign finance reform. 

As we build on past successes, I remain dedicated to tackling systemic barriers and promoting fairer, more inclusive political processes across the nation.

FIVE Chair Steve Peace, who wrote the California Constitutional Amendment abolishing partisan primaries, is excited about the future.   

“I couldn’t be happier to join forces with Cara McCormick and the Chamberlain Project team. Cara’s leadership and vision have been instrumental in shaping nonpartisan electoral reforms that empower voters. Together, we’re taking FIVE into the future with an even stronger commitment to creating a more inclusive and representative democracy,” he said.

“Election reforms that combine the best of open primaries and candidate ranking systems are generating broad support. The people who worked for these systems for many years have joined forces to improve the proposals and work together to get them passed. This is why we’re seeing more mainstream nonpartisan electoral reforms popping up across the country,” said Peace.

“We understand that no system is perfect and taking the next step in California by embracing ‘More Choice’ plans that combine the best elements of open primaries with the right of general election voters to rank multiple candidates is the next step in protecting and expanding voter rights,” he continued. 

IVP Chairman Dan Howle acknowledged this evolution of thought. 

“We’ve embraced the More Choice Initiative because we’ve been able to sit down with advocates from the ranked choice voting world, we’ve learned from them, and we’ve found ways to reduce the negative aspects and incorporate the positive aspects of open primaries and ranked choice voting into a single system that can make our elections a lot better,” he said.

“For more than a decade, FIVE has been working alongside the Chamberlain Project to drive transformative systemic changes that open up our political system to more voices. This merger solidifies a partnership built on a shared vision for a democracy that works for everyone. We’re proud to take this step together as we continue to empower voters and foster real, lasting reform,” Howle added.