Search query: alaska

Tuesday marked a historic election for Charlottesville, Virginia, as the city used ranked choice voting (RCV) for the first time in a competitive Democratic primary. RCV advocates say the results offer a compelling case for the system’s potential to increase representation and voter satisfaction.

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.

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.

The Trump administration has proposed reversing a Biden-era policy that barred new oil, gas, and mining development across much of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A), a vast, ecologically and economically significant area roughly the size of Indiana. 

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.

As the Senate begins debate Monday on President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” polling underscores a widening gap between congressional Republicans and the independent voters they will need to win future elections. At the center of the conflict is Medicaid.

US Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) have united in opposition to the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghan nationals, highlighting the severe consequences for Afghan women and girls in particular.

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.

The Harvard Political Review (HPR) is a student-run publication at Harvard University that is widely regarded for high-level, nonpartisan analysis of political developments in the U.S. and abroad. Founded in 1969 by members of the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, HPR has been a launchpad for major voices in public service and academia.