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I greatly admire and appreciate moving, memorable speeches, and former President Barack Obama has given many. Some of his most powerful have been when he stepped outside of his role as a politician. I cannot help but think of the timeless eulogy, more than a speech, that he gave at the funeral of Reverend Clementa Pinckney, in which Obama remembered and memorialized the pastor and the eight parishioners killed by a white supremacist gunman at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charle

To have their voices heard and enact change, citizens are urged to use their vote. But how can America's population be truly represented when, in some states, it is nearly impossible for independent or minor party candidates to even appear on voters' ballots? What good is a "fair" vote when viable candidates are undermined by strict ballot access laws that favor the two major parties? Clearly, election reform at state and federal levels is desperately needed. Here are 8 of America's worst ballo

Earlier this year, Utah and Washington quietly joined 14 other states that have eliminated the use of registration deadlines as a final cutoff to be able to vote. The congruent actions of a red state and blue state bring the number of states that allow voters to register or update a registration when they go to vote to nearly one in three. It’s a critical threshold that could spell the end of voter registration deadlines as we’ve known them for 100 years. Enabling voters to address and fix reg

The independent and nonpartisan reform movements have never seen the momentum they are seeing today. Voters are ditching the Republican and Democratic Parties in droves. A record number of independent and third party candidates are running. And, powerful coalitions are forming to transform the US political system into one that is more representative of the diverse political landscape in America. We are witnessing history in the making. Here are the 15 biggest developments in the independent mov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwyVJ_-q0mE&feature=youtu.be Video Source: Rebel HQ When it comes to electoral reform right now, there is no hotter topic -- arguably -- than ranked choice voting (RCV). I have covered its use and its growth in popularity extensively on IVN, and momentum for the reform continues to grow. The biggest news came in June when Maine became the first state in the US to use RCV for state and non-presidential federal elections. The numbers indicate that independent vot

San Francisco, CA. - San Francisco is now the first city in California to allow non-citizens to vote in elections. In the November 2016 election, San Francisco voters passed Proposition N, the Non-Citizen Voting in School Board Elections measure by a vote of 54% to 46%. It was enacted by the Board of Supervisors in May. The statute reads "Proposition N gives voting rights in San Francisco School Board elections to non-citizen residents of San Francisco who are of legal voting age, not in priso

A thrilling victory by a young insurgent candidate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, against a 20-year incumbent and party boss, US Rep. Joseph Crowley, in the June 26 New York primary seems to be reverberating over state and national politics. Pundits are posing the question of whether a national anti-establishment wave within Democratic Party politics is in the making. Many activists -- myself among them -- hope so, but don't shout too soon. Remember how in 2004 a young upstart, newly-elected senat

ILLINOIS - Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Kash Jackson released a statement Saturday in support of implementing ranked choice voting and proportional representation in Illinois. "Americans deserve the opportunity to be as in-control of their personal voting as possible. When multiple candidates are ranked on a single ballot it mainstreams the voting process, eliminates the need for run-off elections, and gives voters more say in their representation," Jackson states. "It allows the voice

"Ranked choice voting" is gaining momentum in cities and states across the country. The attention it has gotten in places like Maine -- which will be the first state to use it for statewide elections -- has raised its profile as a popular alternative voting method than what is currently used in most jurisdictions in the US. This attention also has many unfamiliar with the election reform asking: How does ranked choice voting work? How RCV Works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQYRZsbxGgE Vi

"Hollywood for ugly people." It is not a phrase coined by Michigan independent congressional candidate Cooper Nye. However, Nye says he can see why some people have come to view Washington, DC this way after working in the nation's capital. And the phrase -- from Nye's point of view -- is not a personal attack against individual policymakers on Capitol Hill, but rather a statement on how DC is run and the ugly, partisan, sometimes corrupt culture that has taken hold in Washington. Cooper Nye