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Andrew Yang was the guest of a special virtual event Wednesday hosted by Open Primaries and IndependentVoting.org’s Politics for the People book club. Yang is a former Democratic presidential candidate and the founder of the Forward Party, which prioritizes the need to reform the US electoral and political processes. “The Forward Party movement is an inclusive popular movement you can join as a Democrat, independent, Republican, and our main mission is to fix the incentives so that our governme

The idea of a “deep state” in American government has become a hot topic in recent years, but does it actually exist? And is it good, or bad? This episode's expert guest, Prof. Michael J Glennon, is possibly the best person on the planet to help us figure out the truth. In this interview, Prof. Glennon explains his book, "National Security and Double Government." Amongst other topics, he discusses how the reality of a "double government" of the national security complex intersects with the mo

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished with permission from the publisher. ‍ For those seeking better elections and a more representative government in the United States, the coming year is a time of great promise and peril. We have a historic opportunity to advance comprehensive electoral reform, yet have much to lose if we fall short. I’ve led FairVote since it launched in 1992, grounded in a vision of lifting up structural reform nationally

The Supreme Court holds one of the most delicate roles in our republic. This is not only because of judicial review, which gives that branch virtually unlimited power to dictate both changes as well as continuity in our nation’s development. It is also because court must perpetuate the public’s perception that they are the most impartial branch of government, in order to retain their stature and legitimacy. That perception is at least in part deceiving. As Rachel Sheldon explains, the public pe

The momentum powering the ranked choice voting movement doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Along with being used in a record number of cities in 2021, voters in 3 additional cities approved its use in future elections. Thirty-two cities across 7 states (DE, MA, ME, MI, MN, NM, and UT) used ranked choice voting for their November 2 elections. Twenty-two of those cities used the alternative voting method for the first time, most of which were located in Utah. It is important to note that there i

The Freedom to Vote Act, which would make a number of major changes to election law in the United States, is could come up for a vote soon. The bill includes a number of provisions, including a ban on partisan gerrymandering for congressional districts, new registration and early voting requirements for federal elections, and a federal voter ID provision. However, an underreported aspect of the Freedom to Vote Act (and largely uncontroversial) is that it would make the first Tuesday after the f

The mood among Democrats these days seems to oscillate between panic and despair. The Biden administration, which billed itself as restoring competence and order to the political process, not only grievously botched the Afghanistan withdrawal and the removal of Haitian immigrants in Texas, but cannot even attain a semblance of order within its own party. Whether it be the filibuster, government spending, or tax policy, Democrats seem afflicted with an auto-immune disease that requires them to at

On September 6, 2021, Alan Braid, a seventy-six-year-old OBGYN in San Antonio, Texas, performed an abortion on a woman in her first trimester. A few years ago, this procedure would have attracted little attention. This time, however, Dr. Braid became a national headline. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, he wrote, “I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do for all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care.” What made Dr. Braid’s decision notew

Could ranked choice voting soon come to the nation’s most populous state? That is the goal of a new coalition that officially launched on Tuesday, September 21. The California RCV Coalition introduced itself to the public during a public Zoom event at a point when ranked choice voting (RCV) is having a moment. RCV is the fastest spreading voting reform in the country, and coalition members hope California will build on both the popularity and success of reform efforts. “There has been a lot of

Maine has long been at the forefront of political innovation, from the way its ballots are designed, to its clean election funds program, to same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting, to implementing ranked choice voting. Yet, it bolstered its reputation even more when it passed semi-open primary reform in 2021. Open Primaries, which partnered with Open Primaries Maine to move the needle on primary reform in the state, released a new report on the multi-year process that culmina