Search query: maryland

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.

Momentum continues to build for broad systemic changes to how US citizens elect their public officials. Reforms like ranked choice voting and nonpartisan primaries are growing in popularity as voters look to solutions to make the political process fairer and voter-centric. With 2020 near its end, political reformers are looking toward the future, and what proposals are working and what proposals need more attention. One proposal that is getting more attention from some reformers is proportiona

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

When the Iranian Revolution broke out in 1978, Sassan Rahimzadeh’s family made its way to the U.S., escaping the violence that killed thousands of people and toppled the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Just a few years later, his family opened its first dry cleaning business in San Diego County. “It was your typical mom and pop shop,” said Rahimzadeh, owner of Arya Cleaners. “Over the years we opened more locations from Horton Plaza to Del Mar.” Today, his business has shrunk to just f

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

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

Incredible investigative work1 by Dorian Hargrove and the NBC7 investigative team laid out how City of San Diego officials allowed a questionable land deal to go through that generated significant profits for politically connected and influential special interests while causing taxpayers to waste hundreds of millions of dollars. The lack of scrutiny of the deal by the mayor’s office, members of the City Council and the city attorney’s office raises a lot of big questions. While NBC’s very detail

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ The coronavirus pandemic has already changed how millions of Americans will vote this year, and a new poll makes clear it's also going to change when they vote. Six in 10 Americans want to cast their ballots before Election Day, either in-person at an early voting location or after getting to a drop box or the post office to return an absentee envelope, accordin

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

This is an independent opinion. Want to respond? Write your own commentary! Email hoa@ivn.us. The California Common Sense Party is attempting to be officially recognized, so that it can participate in helping independent-minded candidates running for the state legislature this November. The COVID-19 virus shut down all signature-gathering operations in the state, so we had to stop short of the required 68,000 registrations. However, as of March 8, when we had to stop gathering registrations in