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The Unrig The System Summit in New Orleans was a historic event that brought together people from across the political spectrum who could all agree on at least one thing: Our political process is corrupt, rigged, and need of broad systemic reform. Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, progressives, independents, and more shared the spotlight together not to talk about the political issues that divide them, but the reform initiatives that can unite them. "Good things, developmental things are

I am a physician and a black woman who grew up poor and came of age in the 1970’s. I‘ve spent 25 years practicing medicine, mainly in Harlem, and I care deeply about the state of our country, about the state of black America, and about the state of our democracy. I am also a political independent and reform activist who has worked for years to help generate conversations about our dysfunctional and divisive political system and the overwhelming social crisis that results from it. These can be

Sitting in the audience at the Unrig the System Summit in New Orleans two weeks ago, I couldn’t help but feel that a tide was turning. Speaker after speaker at this high energy and well-attended event made one central point: America cannot engage its massive social and economic problems under the present system. It is too corrupt. Until we change it, reform it, re-engineer it, we will be powerless. The conference’s main organizer, Josh Silver of Represent.Us, echoed this point throughout the w

A Stanford political scientist is stating what IVN has reported for a long time now: Americans are not more polarized, despite what the media says. US voters are not being driven further to one corner or another in the ongoing political struggle between two private political corporations -- the Republican and Democratic Parties. The people, largely, fall all over the political spectrum. "You have two parties in a heterogeneous country where people have all kinds of views," says political scie

Here's one aspect of the independent ethos that guides how I think about politics, and what I think about: Whatever I'm not allowed to talk about, that's what I want to talk about. Whatever topic is off limits, that's the topic I want to discuss. Whatever I'm not allowed to say, I'm not necessarily going to spit it, but I am going to chew on it long and hard and think about why I'm not allowed to say it. And if there's not a good reason – or worse – there's a pathological social or political t

In this new series, Independent OGs, writers at IVN News will chronicle the lives and exploits of independents throughout history – or as we are calling them: Independent O.G.s (short for Original Gangstas). Of course George Washington was THE Independent OG of all American history, and it would seem that every president since has departed further and further from the example and precedent that Mr. Washington set. To begin with, George Washington was in fact the only president in United States

One of the panel events at this years Unrig The System Summit, brought together leaders from different political points of view. From transparency in government, to voting rights, to an a deep dive into IVN and the connections of business and politics, the Spark Talks offered attendees valuable insights into what some of the leading political organizations from across the county are thinking as we head into the 2018 election season. Zoe Reiter, Transparency International Senior Project Leader

The Equal Vote Coalition is proposing an innovative new voting system that its leaders say will not only revolutionize the way we conduct elections, but will provide the fixes we need for a clearly broken system. The voting system is called STAR (Score Then Automatic Runoff) Voting, which was originally proposed in 2014. "STAR Voting allows voters to rate all the candidates similar to how we rate books on Amazon, restaurants on Yelp and songs on iTunes," Equal Vote explains on its website. "Wh

Hello fellow independent voters! This is your weekly Independent Thought Alarm: Hashtag Russian Bots Edition. In case this is your first time reading Independent Thought Alarm: These are thoughtful missives about controversial subjects with some thoughts that are so novel, independent, and outside the mainstream of acceptable opinion, that repeating them might trigger a call to security to have you escorted off the premises! Now a lot of people are saying a lot of things about Russian "bots" i

The Gerrymandering Project at 538 has begun an interesting conversation by producing eight sets of national congressional maps, each with a distinct goal.They demonstrate what maps would look like with a GOP or a Democratic lean, and then also zero in on other objectives often sought by mapmakers, such as compactness, competitiveness, maximizing majority-minority seats, or matching the likely statewide outcome to the state’s partisan breakdown.One of the great contributions of this giant effort