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‍ The way the US political system operates is tearing the country apart. Voters are forced to choose between two deeply polarizing narratives, and the further the two sides move apart, the more damage is being done to the country at-large. The problem of polarization in the US is not just affecting the nation’s politics. It also affects its social structure and economy, and businesses are now finding themselves caught in the middle of the political crossfire. It has been impossible, for ins

With S1 going to markup before the U.S. Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday, May 11, the inherent hypocrisy behind HR1/S1 - the ‘For the People Act’ must be called out. But it won't happen as part of the public hearing process, because there won’t be any one present that will raise it. From the Democratic Party side, the Rules Committee hearing is expected to focus on responding to concerns from election officials about requirements and timelines related to HR1/S1’s mandates for early voting, vo

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Iowa is already seeing the effects of the year's first Republican-driven curbs on voting. The state's elections administrator has told 294,000 Iowans they've been targeted for an eventual purge from the registration list — simply because they did not vote last year. GOP Secretary of State Paul Pate's office revealed this week that postcards have been mailed to

‍ RepresentUs, the nation’s largest anti-corruption organization, released a short video starring comedic actor Ed Helm highlighting the true impact and consequence of partisan gerrymandering. The irony of the video is as funny as it is, it shows just how serious of a problem the partisan scheme is across the country. The mock PSA, titled “Save The Gerrymanderers,” highlights the threat gerrymandering poses to voters. And, no matter how illegal it sounds like it should be, it is a problem tha

Shawn Griffiths joins host T. J. O’Hara on Deconstructed to discuss Georgia’s controversial new election law. Mr. Griffiths is a nationally recognized expert in political reform and voting rights and the host of Toppling the Duopoly, a show that follows the historic movement to give power to all voters, including at the ballot box and in the court room. He is also the editor of the IVN Network where, over the past nine years, he’s covered and published breaking news stories related to reform mov

Editor's Note: This piece by Larry Diamond, Kevin Johnson, and Miles Rapoport originally published on The Hill, and has been republished with permission from the authors. ‍ Two secretaries of state were honored recently by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico’s Democratic secretary of state, and Kyle Ardoin, Louisiana’s Republican secretary of state, received the organization’s prestigious Patriot Award on behalf of all U.S election officials, in recog

Just a few weeks after the storming of the Capitol and the impeachment trial, Gallup found for the first time that 50% of voters identify as independents.  Registered independent voters are now the largest or second largest group of voters in half the states and will be the largest or second largest group of voters in almost every state in the country within a few years at current rates of growth. More significant than the raw numbers--which are impressive--independent voters are participating

U.S. democracy is in existential crisis. The country already suffers from unrepresentative winner-take-all, single-seat-district legislative elections, a two-party duopoly, partisan gerrymandering, the corrupting influence of big money in politics, and an Electoral College and US Senate that give vastly outsized influence to some voters over others. In the case of the Electoral College, it can also prevent the presidential candidate receiving the most votes from being elected. But now even w

What is the duopoly? On the surface this may seem like a common sense question: We have a political system dominated by two major parties. Hence, we have a duopoly. That simple, right?  Yet, the reasons we have a two-party duopoly in the US are far more nuanced. The Republican and Democratic Parties win nearly every partisan electoral contest in the US. But, this is not the reason for the duopoly, but a symptom of it, and unfortunately the damaging effects the duopoly has had on the political

‍ There are a number of nonpartisan reforms being proposed to address the myriad of deep systemic problems that ensure US elections primarily serve the private, gain-seeking interests of the Republican and Democratic Parties, instead of voters. There is no cure-all, no silver bullet. Change is going to require a comprehensive approach. However, one solution that easily has the most momentum behind it across the country is ranked choice voting. Ranked choice voting, or the ability to rank ca