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Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Alternative voting systems have been making inroads across the country in recent years but suffered a setback Monday when the Tennessee General Assembly passed a ban on ranked-choice voting. Assuming Gov. Bill Lee signs the bill into law, this will end a saga that began in 2008 when the people of Memphis voted to use RCV for city elections but had yet to use it

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished with permission from the publisher. ‍ For those seeking better elections and a more representative government in the United States, the coming year is a time of great promise and peril. We have a historic opportunity to advance comprehensive electoral reform, yet have much to lose if we fall short. I’ve led FairVote since it launched in 1992, grounded in a vision of lifting up structural reform nationally

A majority of young people look at the US political system and they do not see a true democratic process. A new Harvard Youth Poll found that many Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 believe the system is “in trouble” or has failed entirely. The poll, from the Harvard University Kennedy School's Institute of Politics (IOP), found that only 7% of young adults believe the US has a “healthy democracy,” including 5% of independent and unaffiliated voters in this age group. Further, young peo

The momentum powering the ranked choice voting movement doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Along with being used in a record number of cities in 2021, voters in 3 additional cities approved its use in future elections. Thirty-two cities across 7 states (DE, MA, ME, MI, MN, NM, and UT) used ranked choice voting for their November 2 elections. Twenty-two of those cities used the alternative voting method for the first time, most of which were located in Utah. It is important to note that there i

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on the IVN Network with permission from the publisher. ‍ The massive elections reform bill known as the Freedom to Vote Act appears to be headed down the same path as its predecessor: blocked from Senate consideration by a Republican filibuster. Senate Democrats plan to bring the compromise bill to the floor Wednesday for a procedural vote that would allow lawmakers to begin debating the legislation. Howe

The Freedom to Vote Act, which would make a number of major changes to election law in the United States, is could come up for a vote soon. The bill includes a number of provisions, including a ban on partisan gerrymandering for congressional districts, new registration and early voting requirements for federal elections, and a federal voter ID provision. However, an underreported aspect of the Freedom to Vote Act (and largely uncontroversial) is that it would make the first Tuesday after the f

It’s January 2021, there’s a new president in D.C., a new Senate majority and a Democratic majority crowing about how voting rights is their top priority, even making the For the People Act their first bill (H.R. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate). Cut to nine months later. It’s now September 2021. President Biden has spent more time focusing on an Afghanistan withdrawal than on pressuring Congress to pass voting rights legislation. The For the People Act has been passed by the House of Re

Thanks to the Constitutionally-mandated periodic census, the House of Representatives will look a lot different for the 2022 midterm elections, with some states gaining seats, some losing them, and partisan gerrymanders sprouting across the nation like sunflowers. As a result, Republicans, it seems certain, will be in a far better position to retake control of the chamber. The cause of this upheaval, the 2020 census, was the most controversial in recent memory. Ordinarily, this once-every-ten-y

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum, and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ A tallying error by the New York City Board of Elections threw the otherwise smoothly run ranked-choice voting primary into disarray on Tuesday. The Board of Elections accidentally included 135,000 test ballots in its unofficial vote tally, but has not yet counted the more than 124,000 absentee ballots. The erroneous results showed Kathryn Garcia within reach

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ When Sen. Joe Manchin's office told CNN this week that he opposes the For the People Act, the West Virginia Democrat struck a fatal blow to his party's signature legislation to overhaul the elections, redistricting, campaign finance and ethics rules. From its debut in 2019, the legislation was considered a long shot at best and likely nothing more than a messag