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Andy Moore, Executive Director of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers (NANR), joins host T. J. O’Hara on Deconstructed to discuss that organization’s progress toward attaining nonpartisan reform. Mr. Moore serves as an entrepreneur-in-residence with Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma, and he is also the founder of Let’s Fix This, which is focused upon building civic engagement and power for political reform. Given Mr. Moore’s diverse educational background (BS

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum, and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Partisanship reached a boiling point in Texas over the weekend as Democratic lawmakers took a dramatic step to obstruct a GOP-backed bill that would impose severe limits on voting access. In the final hours of the legislative session, Democrats staged a dramatic walkout, leaving the state House without a quorum and therefore unable to hold a final vote on the

‍ Demographics in the American electorate are shifting, the needs and priorities of voters are changing, yet politics in the US hasn't changed much in the last half century. In fact, the only thing that has changed is that the government has gotten less and less responsive to voters. I discussed some of the driving forces behind this in a previous examination of what it means when reformers refer to the US political system as a two-party duopoly. Two private political organizations, the Republ

Independent voters are on the verge of being at least the second largest voting bloc in nearly all states that register voters by party. This is the findings of a report the Open Primaries Education Fund released back in November. Right now, voters registered independent (or unaffiliated, etc.) outnumber registered members of at least one of the major parties in 15 of the 30 states that register voters by party. OPEF projects most states will be added to this list by 2035. Also, for the firs

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Next year's redistricting landscape is, at best, a mixed bag for good-governance advocates. Although the mapmaking process has become fairer and less politicized in a handful of states over the past decade, partisan gerrymandering will still have a profound impact on representation across most of the country. Democrats had high hopes of taking back enough power

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Voting in the presidential election ends in 40 days, and states are still making adjustments to their rules and procedures. The coronavirus pandemic, along with a wave of litigation from voting rights groups and Democrats, has resulted in 34 states deciding to make it easier to cast a ballot this fall — either voluntarily or as the result of a lawsuit. Most of

What is Proposition 16? Proposition 16 is a constitutional amendment that would repeal Proposition 209, passed in 1996, from the California Constitution. Proposition 209 stated that discrimination and preferential treatment were prohibited in public employment, public education, and public contracting on account of a person's or group's race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Therefore, Proposition 209 banned the use of affirmative action involving race-based or sex-based preferences i

FLORENCE, MASS. - Elections officials in the US are expecting a surge in absentee votes in the 2020 election as the US continues to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. To provide voters with the resources they need to request and send a ballot by mail, the national anti-corruption group RepresentUs launched a new toolkit to dispel disinformation and confusion ahead of November. The interactive online tool, which launched Thursday, provides the information voters need in every state to vote absent

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ With fewer than a hundred days to the presidential election, almost half the states have now altered some normal laws or regulations to make casting a ballot easier and safer in light of the coronavirus. Most of the changes so far, but not all of them, are designed to promote voting by mail — the healthiest way to exercise the franchise this year, but a practic

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum, and was republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. Straight-ticket voting won't be returning to Texas now that a federal judge has rejected an effort by Democrats to maintain the practice. Allowing Texans to cast one quick vote, in favor of one party's entire slate of candidates, has been allowed for a century and was the way two-thirds of 2018 ballots were cast in the second most populous state. But the Republican-maj