Search query: independent voter project

Everyday, we hear from another candidate that if only we elect them, they will unite the country and solve our problems. But there’s a bigger reason why only 9% have confidence in Congress. It is because our election system incentivizes partisanship by making candidates, regardless of party, accountable to the voters in their party, not to the electorate in general. So, unless a candidate is going to unrig the system, calls for unity are just empty rhetoric. That’s one reason why the Indepen

 US voters have overwhelmingly said they want a third candidate in presidential debates. As we look ahead to 2020, it seems the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates will once again deny them the opportunity. IVN contributor Wes Messamore and I go into the history of the debate commission, which has made it all but impossible for candidates outsid

US voters have overwhelmingly said they want a third candidate in presidential debates. As we look ahead to 2020, it seems the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates will once again deny them the opportunity. IVN contributor Wes Messamore and I go into the history of the debate commission, which has made it all but impossible for candidates outside the Republican and Democratic Parties to appear on the public stage -- all in the self-serving interest of protecting the major party nominee

An Update on the Lindbergh Intermodal Transportation Center (ITC) Option By Carl Nettleton The San Diego Association of Government’s (SANDAG) leadership in developing a proposed Grand Central Station to link San Diego International Airport with regional ground transportation modes is an important initiative whose time is long overdue. The options for the Grand Central Station concept have been reduced to the Navy’s SPAWAR facility and a location called the Intermodal Transportation Center, bot

San Diego, Calif.- It's exceedingly difficult to get 66% of voters to agree that the sun rises in the east, which makes it all the more impressive that in November 2016, 65.79% of voters approved Measure L, the law that puts all initiatives on November ballots by default to ensure they’re decided in elections where the most voters participate. San Diego voters agreed that the core ideas of Measure L, that San Diego's biggest civic decisions are made when the most voters are participating, in th

It is no secret that both parties control the presidential nomination process. But what is less-known is that taxpayers, not the parties, fund the primary election. So, why wouldn’t every voter, regardless of party, get to participate? That’s why the Independent Voter Project (IVP) responded to another partisan “solution” this week to California’s confusing (and taxpayer funded) semi-closed presidential primary, which would continue to shortchange over 5.6 million independent voters. Instead

Seven score and sixteen years ago, President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most memorable speeches in all of human history in his Gettysburg Address, though he wrongly presumed the world would not “long remember what we say here.” His triumph was to clarify just what was at stake in such a devastating internal war that killed around 750,000 Americans. “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and

A Roadmap to A Better Democracy By: Wes Messamore Reform activists from around the country gathered in the Country Music Capital of the World –– Nashville, Tennessee –– over the last weekend in March to celebrate an absolute tidal wave of policy victories in 2018; listen to inspirational speeches; share and learn the nuts and bolts of policy reform; and even to air fierce differences of opinion over the best way to reform elections in America and over other areas of public policy. How they buz

The 2016 presidential primaries in California didn’t go smoothly. The election was marred by widespread confusion and frustration as millions of voters had to navigate a complex and restrictive semi-closed primary process. As a result, they were completely disenfranchised by the process. The Independent Voter Project had anticipated this issue, and offered legislative solutions in 2015 and 2016, but neither the legislature nor the secretary of state took up the cause. As a result, millions of

The “wave” election swept in a few Democrats, but — like most U.S. elections — rolled over democracy’s basic premise that elections should offer meaningful competition and choices for voters. The newly published America Goes to the Polls report on the midterm’s certified voter turnout of the 50 states found the large majority of House elections were not competitive. Over 60% were uncontested or won by landslide margins of 20% or more. While the midterm did see more House seats contested compare