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County Commissioner Mark Jerrell joins host T. J. O’Hara on Deconstructed to discuss the challenges elected officials face as they try to expand voter participation, address social issues, and deal with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The two also explore what true political leadership requires and how critical conversations need be entertained to address complex issues like race. Mr. Jerrell currently represents District 4 on the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners in North Caro

Election integrity became a hot button issue during and in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. It is a phrase voters have heard a lot since November 3, as Donald Trump and many of his supporters claim widespread fraud took place that denied him re-election. Lawmakers and advocates who stood by the president and vowed to challenge the election results said they were doing it for the sake of the integrity of the electoral process. Challenging the legitimacy of elections is becoming more

Election integrity became a hot button issue during and in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. It is a phrase voters have heard a lot since November 3, as Donald Trump and many of his supporters claim widespread fraud took place that denied him re-election.

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

The 2016 election seems like a distant memory from a lifetime ago. But 2020 isn't really qualitatively different, just more of what 2016 was. We're seeing that wild year's ghosts of partisanship in overdrive this year. And there's likely not one person who doesn't find it all extraordinarily peculiar. In one of many echoes from 2016, Donald Trump is bringing the rigged election rhetoric harder than ever. This time backed with numerous lawsuits. Many have already been dismissed, others are in pr

This is the first in a two-part series. Check back with IVN San Diego next week for the next column More than 50 years have passed since the groundbreaking Equality of Educational Opportunity Coleman Report was published, yet it remains relevant today. The 750-page Coleman Report, led by James Coleman, was mandated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and – although not without controversy – is still the go-to document for evidence-based education policy. Before the Coleman Report was released,

Editor's Note: This opinion piece originally appeared in The Hill, and has been republished on IVN with permission from the author. ‍ Polling indicates Joe Biden and the Democrats will win big. However, Democrats are falling short of the edge they need in early voting to offset the Republicans’ anticipated big edge in Election Day voting in three of four battleground states where data is available. If pollsters adjusted to fix 2016 mistakes, the RealClearPolitics average in each state shows B

VotePact is a voting strategy that advocates that people vote for their actual preferences by pairing up with someone on the other side of the Democratic-Republican divide. So people can strategically vote for the candidates they most like without fear of helping those they most fear. Instead of effectively cancelling out each other -- one for Trump and one for Biden, they can both vote Libertarian or Green or whatever they want. It is effectively DIY ranked choice voting, which allows voters t

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ October is the last chance for most Americans to register if they want to vote for president this year. But 86 million eligible Americans, or one-third of the national total, can even sign up — and then proceed to cast a ballot — on Election Day. That's because they live in the 19 states (plus D.C.) that allow what's known as same-day registration. Eligible res

As the pandemic forced Terry Delamater’s two Bakersfield-area fitness centers to shut down for months, the pharmacist-turned-gym-owner in desperation turned to his county supervisor for help. Maybe, Delamater suggested, the gyms could reopen as an essential business? After all, Delamater said, he had kept up his pharmacist license. And he and his daughter had been working since last year with a national organization, the Medical Fitness Association, to certify the Sculpt 365 gyms as “medical fi