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California is now the largest state to permanently adopt universal mail-in ballot distribution. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the measure into law Monday. While it goes a long way to increase voter participation in the Golden State, public officials are still not doing everything they can to give all voters a level playing field in elections. California, like many of the other states that expanded access to mail-in ballots as an emergency change in 2020, saw record turnout in November. The state

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum and has been republished with permission from the publisher. ‍ While much of the country's election reform legislation has been rife with partisanship, Vermont is bucking that trend. Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed into law on Monday a measure that will automatically send Vermont's 495,000 registered voters a mail-in ballot ahead of statewide general elections. The General Assembly approved the legislation on a bipartisan basis

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

The Equal Vote Coalition announced Monday that a historic new bill has been introduced in the Oregon State House that would establish STAR (Score, Then Automatic Runoff) Voting as the default voting method in Oregon. Oregon would be the first state to adopt the voting method’s use. STAR Voting is different from alternative voting methods that have gained traction across the country, like ranked choice voting and approval voting. Voters can think of it as scoring candidates the way they would r

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 movements to reform the electoral process in the US made significant and historic gains during the 2020 election. Voters in 5 cities approved the use of ranked choice voting, and Alaska voters combined the use of RCV in the general election with the first top-four nonpartisan open primary. And, in St. Louis, voters approved the first nonpartisan open primary combined with approval voting. Changing how voters elect public officials is at the core of the nonpartisan reform effort. The curr

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

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. All across the country, the consistent theme of this presidential year has been turmoil. A confusingly huge field of candidates vying to take on a norm-busting incumbent was just the start. The normally boring rules for conducting elections have been in high-profile upheaval since the coronavirus outbreak took hold in the spring, as most states grappled with how t

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

With Labor Day in the rearview mirror, campaigns across the country are ramping up their activities the best they can in the final eight weeks of a pandemic-affected election. This includes several campaigns that look to expand the historic momentum behind nonpartisan election reform. Open Primaries hosted the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers’ second Spotlight of the year, which highlighted 9 reform efforts happening right now to ensure all voters have an equal and meaningful vote