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New Jersey has become the first state to back away from a pandemic-driven switch to conducting elections almost entirely remotely.

Editor's Note: This article originally published on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission form the publisher. ‍ New Jersey has become the first state to back away from a pandemic-driven switch to conducting elections almost entirely remotely. Projections of declining Covid-19 cases by the spring prompted Gov. Phil Murphy's announcement Monday that the state's longtime reliance on in-person voting will resume for school board elections in April, municipal contests in May

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

Democrats, if they acted out of more than pique and the need to feed red meat to their base, hoped that the second impeachment would prevent Trump from running again, legally disqualifying him. Justice Roberts put the lie to that when he signaled that he would not preside because it was not, constitutionally speaking, an impeachment, as Trump was no longer in office. Moreover, if anything, the impeachment will keep Trump’s base engaged and in sympathy with their leader. It has become clear that

It has become clear that there is not even close to the 2/3 majority needed in the Senate to vote to convict. While the House vote to impeach helped the Democrats shape the post capitol incursion, post inaugural narrative, it has left the Democratic leadership “all dressed up...

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 in The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ It's often hard to see, but much more is at stake Tuesday than the presidency and control of Congress. Voters get to shape public policy by approving or rejecting more than 100 statewide ballot measures and dozens more local proposals — and this exercise in direct democracy includes plenty of ideas for bettering American democracy itself. More than a score of m

Joe Biden, if he wins the presidency, has promised to create a bipartisan commission to recommend changes to the “out of whack” American court system. The commission’s prime focus will almost certainly be the Supreme Court, which to Democrats is about as out of whack as it can get. The commission will have no shortage of reform proposals from which to choose, from expanding the number of justices to requiring super majorities for certain cases to term limits. Although some also have suggested

Judicial review does not appear in the Constitution. As former Justice Antonin Scalia admitted, “The Constitution of the United States nowhere says that the Supreme Court shall be the last word on what the Constitution means…"

The democracy reform movement is having a moment right now. There are campaigns all across the country fighting gerrymandering, corruption, voter suppression, and plurality voting. Because of this, we constantly get asked, “Who are you? And why are you advocating for approval voting instead of [insert preferred reform here]?” As a relatively new organization in the reform space, we thought it was time that we re-introduce ourselves to you. We are The Center for Election Science, and here are t