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Current events have turned everyone's attention to the nation’s criminal justice system. Most Americans agree that the system is broken. Yet, in a new Unbreaking America film, RepresentUs points out that the criminal justice system remains broken because the broken US political system keeps it that way. “Even though crime rates across the US are going down, America locks up seven times more people now than we did in 1970,” says actor and RepresentUs Cultural Council member Omar Epps. Acco

This article was first published on The Fulcrum New Jersey piloted a new online voting system for people with disabilities this week, but a lawsuit could stop the state from using it again. Human rights activists and law school students are challenging the new voting system, arguing it's unfair to expose only one category of voters to significant risk their ballots will get hacked with impunity. Using a special app to vote over the internet is denigrated by most cybersecurity experts, who sa

Last week President Trump announced that he will be making the "toughest decision" of not just his presidency but his life: When and how to open our Covid-ravaged country again. During the same week, Dr. Fauci fanned media flames by stating that there was "push back" to his recommendations to shut down the economy back in February, yet admitted he solely assesses information from a health perspective. Herein lies the rub. This is not a life and death decision, but a death and more death and

Originally published on The Fulcrum. Enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 remains a celebrated landmark in American history. It's time to celebrate the law's potential anew by making some big changes in how state legislatures are elected. My home state of Virginia illustrates the merits of doing so. First, a quick refresher course: The law enacted 55 years ago put an end to literacy tests, poll taxes and a host of other discriminatory practices that had kept minority voters from gaining

Hello America! Hello my Brothers and Sisters! This campaign, this race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, has come to a critical point. A boiling point, some would say. And before we go any further, before voters in the next states cast their primary ballots and before the media casts its spin over the public, and before the kingmakers in the back rooms of the Democratic Party tell everyone that it’s over, I want to speak directly to the American people. Not just to Democrats. No

It didn’t take long for the presidential landscape to radically shift following a monumental Super Tuesday. Yet, despite the departure of the richest person to run for president in modern US history and the senior senator from Massachusetts, the true repercussions of Super Tuesday have yet to be fully realized. The reason? California has millions -- yes, millions -- of votes that have yet to be counted. AP quickly called California for Bernie Sanders on March 3 -- a big delegate prize for Sa

With a lot of primary left to go, the Democratic presidential candidates have raised and already spent a small fortune on their White House aspirations. So much for keeping money out of politics, right? As long as the there's politics in money, there will be money in politics. But there are a few good non-partisan political innovations that could improve the way money flows into political campaigns to make the system more transparent and fair to candidates and voters. In the meantime, looking

Illinois should host the first presidential primaries if the goal is to pick a state that most closely matches the demographics of the country. And Vermont, the home state of Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders, should have minimal influence over the process because its makeup is least similar to the entire United States — meaning the results from that state would be hardly at all predictive of the nation's views. Those are among the conclusions out Thursday from the personal financial ser

The beginning of the 2020 presidential election was an unmitigated disaster. Results that should have been reported the night-of in Iowa instead took days as a result of technical issues with an app and inconsistent numbers being reported. Politicos were baffled while accusations of a rigged process arose after the candidate with the most votes didn’t leave with the most delegates. At the center of the controversy was independent US Senator Bernie Sanders, and suddenly the question became whet

On November 19, a California judge will hear arguments to determine whether California’s presidential primary rules violate the constitutional rights of California’s 5.6 million “no party preference” voters. For presidential contests, the Golden State has some of the most confusing primary rules in the country for independent voters. By default, “no party preference” voters (NPPs) in the state are given a ballot without any presidential candidates at all. If they want to participate, they must