Search query: maine

This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Write it! Email it to hoa@ivn.us California’s early 20th century reformers sought to thwart an obviously corrupt political system that benefited entrenched interests and ignored the larger public. Their reforms included ways for voters to bypass the system through direct ballot box action — the initiative, the recall and the referendum. The recall — forcing elected officials to vacate their positions — is the least used but pops up occasio

Incredible investigative work1 by Dorian Hargrove and the NBC7 investigative team laid out how City of San Diego officials allowed a questionable land deal to go through that generated significant profits for politically connected and influential special interests while causing taxpayers to waste hundreds of millions of dollars. The lack of scrutiny of the deal by the mayor’s office, members of the City Council and the city attorney’s office raises a lot of big questions. While NBC’s very detail

PORTLAND, MAINE - The Maine Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the secretary of state was correct in invalidating nearly 1,000 signatures collected for a people’s veto campaign to kill a 2019 law that extends ranked choice voting (RCV) to presidential elections. The decision means two things: 1. The people’s veto measure will NOT appear on the 2020 ballot; and 2. Mainers will, in fact, be the first in the nation to use ranked choice voting in a fall presidential election. "The voters hav

While the term "struggling" is frequently used to describe artists, "resilient,"  "resourceful" or "entrepreneurial" may be more accurate descriptions. Whatever their chosen artistic pursuit,  most artists struggle to find affordable housing or studio space while drawing on considerable inner resources to continue creating their art and maintaining other jobs to support their passion. The pandemic created an extra challenge for Barrio Logan visual artists when it struck hard in mid-March, affec

Thanks to your continued commitment, the fight for nonpartisan reform has never been stronger and more unified! Last week, 200 people turned out for our second NANR spotlight to hear stories from the frontlines of 9 major efforts across the country to bring fundamental change to our election process. WATCH: NANR'S SECOND SPOTLIGHT We’re building on the success of our Spotlight conversations, including a webinar hosted by Citizen Data so you can understand the even more incredible benefits mem

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ South Carolina is poised to become the latest state to permit all voters to use an absentee ballot this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic. Republican Gov. Henry McMaster's office says he will sign a measure, cleared during a special session of the General Assembly on Tuesday, that will suspend for the November election the state's normally strict excuse

ORLANDO, FLA. - Amendment 3 in Florida, the ballot measure that would adopt nonpartisan top-two open primaries for state executive and legislative elections, received a major endorsement from the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday. The newspaper focused on the point that Amendment 3 is opposed by both major parties and that alone is ample reason to support the amendment. “The bosses want you to vote against constitutional amendment No. 3 this fall,” the paper writes. “They’re worried it might loosen

Before he was hospitalized with COVID-19, before his roommates kicked him out of their shared apartment because of his illness, before he found himself unhoused for the first time in his life, Francisco Tzul noticed people at his downtown Los Angeles garment factory start to cough. In a few days, they would disappear. Tzul, 56, is an undocumented worker in the city’s massive garment industry, one that relies on men and women like him to produce shirts, blouses and skirts for major fashion brand

Is affirmative action “the enemy of white people who are contractors and Americans of Asian descent who are trying to get into the University of California at Berkeley,” as one influential critic called it? Or is neglecting race as a factor in admissions denying the reality that many students endure racism as an impediment to academic progress? Rising from the heat of those passions are complicated data points that both backers and opponents of Proposition 16 — the November ballot item that ask

Editor's Note: This article originally published on Governing and has been republished on IVN with permission from the author. ‍ Election specialists and national security experts have been gaming out scenarios for this November, assessing how candidates, supporters and media will respond if voting results are delayed or disputed. The 40 secretaries of state who are chief election officials also play important roles in these scenarios. Local-level officials handle ballot-counting and other key