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"Today, I and many other citizens of Pennsylvania will be denied the right to vote," independent Pennsylvania voter Tom Stack wrote in a letter to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "It is not because we are in prison or non-citizens. It is because we are registered Independents or not affiliated with a political party." The Pennsylvania primaries will be held on Tuesday, May 20, along with the 2014 primary elections in Oregon, Kentucky, Idaho, Georgia, and Arkansas. Four out of the six states holdin

Idaho attorney Gary Allen clearly recalls how he was received by state legislators when a federal district judge ruled that the state’s open primary system was unconstitutional. “I stood in front of the legislative committee and told them, ‘You don’t have to do this,’” he said in an interview. “It isn’t in the interest of the voters or democracy or the state." "I might as well have been talking to a wall,” he added. Allen, a partner with a Boise-based law firm, saw his coalition group lose th

Once again, Arizona is back in the headlines, and once again, it's caused a national uproar. As the same-sex marriage debate continues to snowball in the public square, the Grand Canyon state now waits to see whether or not Governor Jan Brewer will sign the controversial 'Religious Freedom Restoration Act'. Supporters of the law say that it only strengthens existing laws and seeks to ensure everyone's religious freedoms are protected against religious discrimination. Opponents of the law, howe

It seems that in every cycle there is debate about which states should hold the first presidential primary elections. Some state always seems to try to jump ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire. Since 1972, the Iowa Caucuses have been first in the nation and New Hampshire has been the first "primary" since 1920. There, of course, have been states that have attempted to circumvent Iowa and New Hampshire, claiming that they don't truly represent America as they are small states with seemingly narrow

In 2011, the Idaho Republican Party successfully argued that mandating open primaries violated a party's First Amendment right of association in the case, Idaho Republican Party v. Ysura. After the court ruling, political parties were given the option to choose their own primary elections. The Democratic Party chose a semi-closed primary, which allows independent, decline-to-state, and third party voters to participate in the party's primary elections if the voter changes their political affili

Table of Contents State-by-state Information How Do Primaries Work? Partisan v. Nonpartisan Closed (Partisan) Semi-Closed (Partisan) Open (Partisan) Open (Nonpartisan) Variants of Traditional Election Systems Top-Two Nonpartisan Primaries Top-Four Primary Instant Runoff Voting Approval Voting Unified Primary Other Voter Resources Independent Movements in Your State GENERAL ELECTION DATE: November 4, 2014 How do I vote? The following voter guide is tailored to provide vital info

Primaries first began in the early twentieth century as a response to increasingly strong party control over elections. At the time, voters wanted a larger say in who would be chosen as their candidate, instead of the long-standing tradition of party bosses choosing who would run for office. Progressive reformers viewed direct primaries as a way for constituencies to increase transparency and allow for citizens to participate in the electoral process. As primaries became a feature of local, stat

If the media coverage of shutdown politics is to be believed, House Republicans' fear of 'getting primaried' by a more conservative opponent was a major impediment to moderate GOP-ers reaching a bargain with Democrats on healthcare and federal spending. However, a survey of new fundraising reports received this week  -- compiled using Sunlight's Realtime FEC tracker -- shows that incumbent Democrats are also facing credible challenges from within their own party. Money isn't everything in these

Government Closed // Credit: Whitehouse.gov While federal officials wallow in denial and finger-pointing, precipitating a government shutdown; while they fight a fight simply for the sake of obstructing one another’s bills; while they continue to ignore the needs of their constituents by cherry-picking absurd causes in an absurd attempt to improve the thoroughly rotten facade they've built, there will be millions of people impacted by their behavior. What the partisans of Capitol Hill view as

Rule number one in effective communication is to establish the relevancy of the topic to the audience. Why should they care? How does it affect their quality of life? Truthful accounting might do just that. For one measure of the states’ quality of life, we turn to the recent work done by Ballotpedia, a “collaborative encyclopedia designed to connect people to politics.” The site focuses on providing a comprehensive and non-partisan analysis of numerous candidates and political efforts. The Lu