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On April 4, the governors of California and New York signed off on legislation raising their state’s minimum wages to $15 per hour. While the public may disagree about the merits of this measure and what the cumulative effects will be, there is little disagreement that states – as “laboratories of democracy” – are entitled to perform such economic experiments. After all, the first state minimum wage law was passed more than a century ago in Massachusetts in 1912, and a majority of states have mi

Just when you thought independents couldn’t face any more voter discrimination this year, they will be hit with four closed primaries in a single day on April 26. This comes a week after independents were disenfranchised by the closed New York primary on April 19,  a primary where voters were required to register with a party six months in advance and a record amount of independents were told they didn't re-register in time or were turned away from the polls. The five contests on Tuesday are C

Horror stories abound in New York after the Tuesday primaries as voters report being dropped from rolls, turned away by poll workers, and subjected to long lines in understaffed polling places. City authorities admitted that at least 125,000 voters were mysteriously purged from the polls in Brooklyn alone. The New York state attorney general’s office reported that its voter hotline had received 562 phone calls and 140 emails by Tuesday afternoon, more than five times as many complaints than dur

With a new year comes a new legislative session in state houses around the U.S. 2016 has seen state legislators nationwide use this opportunity to empower voters by introducing bills that create new uses of ranked choice voting (RCV) at the state and local levels. Just one month into this year’s session, at least 27 pro-RCV bills have been introduced in 13 states and the District of Columbia. The proposed measures advance RCV in a variety of ways. Bills in Georgia, Massachusetts, and Vermont, f

In recent news, Ohio state officials told Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley that he could not be on the Democratic primary ballot. The petition to be on the ballot required 1,000 valid signatures from a single county. O’Malley submitted 1,175, but only 772 were considered valid. Both of his fellow Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, are on the ballot. Presidential primaries are often reserved only for partisan candidates, but that does not nec

The spirit of America is strong; the state of our union is fragile. That is my conclusion after 100 days driving 14,128 miles through 34 states as an independent candidate for President of the United States. I met with over 1,000 people individually and in small groups. I mostly stayed away from big cities and college campuses. I had learned on two short campaign trips before this long one that very few Americans understand there are independent candidates running for office so I got in the ha

The United States is often celebrated as the world’s leading example of representative government. However, we as a nation barely inspire half of our voters to show up for a national election—leaving U.S. voter participation among the lowest in the developed world. Americans don’t vote for a variety of reasons; however, one of the most common reasons is the growing frustration with our obtuse electoral process. From the arbitrary scheduling of primaries to the antiquated use of the Electoral Co

With football season and the Republican/Democratic primaries in full swing, conversations about politics and football are everywhere and it's hard to stay out of the discussions. This got me thinking about the similarities between football and politics. In football, everyone cheers for their own team and thinks regardless of how bad they are or how they are doing they are the best! Some have been cheering for that team since they were young and saw their parents cheering for them and never tho

In 2015, Forbes magazine ranked California 48th out of 50 in regulatory environment. So why is the world’s 8th largest economy behind Rhode Island when it comes to business climate? Some of the answers were the topic of discussion during the Independent Voter Project’s annual Business and Leadership conference. Four days of conversation among business leaders and members of the California legislature bore out some of the challenges facing the country’s most populated state. Topics entailed an u

For nearly two hundred years, voting has predominantly been tied to fixed residency: citizens are entitled to vote in the districts in which they live. While seemingly a fair and direct application of the principle, "one person, one vote," property owners are beginning to assert that their ownership of property in voting districts outside the one in which they live justifies extending them the right to vote in these districts as well. So, does the right to vote – and should the right to vote –