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Political insiders know what more and more voters are finally waking up to: the political “game” is rigged by both sides. From “member communications,” to gerrymandering, to systematic attempts to keep anyone who doesn’t toe the party-line from participating in elections, there is a reason voters “don’t matter” to the political class. But voters are waking up. In New York City, over 8 million residents could soon adopt ranked choice voting to reduce the “spoiler” effect for independent candid

There is one important truth about the state of US politics, and that is an increasing number of Americans understand that the system is rigged to put the interests of two private political parties and special interests first. The political establishment knows it. The media knows it. But, they don’t want the people to know it. They don’t want people to know that there are literally hundreds of organizations across the country working to unrig our political duopoly. They don’t want you to kno

Referencing events in El Paso and Dayton a week ago, the editors of The Lives of Guns, commented via Politico, “The two mass shootings this weekend have inflamed a gun-control debate that never seems to go away and never seems to get resolved.” This, of course, came only days after an incident at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Salinas, CA. I have long agreed with Forbes contributor Louis Woodhill, who said we have two parties:an evil party (the Democrats) and a stupid party (the Republicans), wh

Voter Choice Massachusetts is proposing a ballot initiative to implement ranked choice voting statewide. The group has filed language with the state attorney general ahead of Wednesday's deadline. Independent Voter News was at the forefront of the historic passage of ranked choice voting in Maine in 2016 and then again in 2018 when it was used for the first time in statewide and non-presidential federal primary elections and US House and US Senate general elections. It decided one of the two US

The Supreme Court’s decision to punt on partisan gerrymandering (RUCHO ET AL. v. COMMON CAUSE ET AL.) was discouraging for many in the electoral reform movement, but really should not have come as a surprise. The recent Court has given broad latitude to the Constitution’s granting to state legislatures control of state election law. And with this ruling, the Court made clear that the majority believes partisan gerrymandering - no matter how exclusionary, unfair, or anti-democratic - is a politic

Do you remember the old Schoolhouse Rock segment about how a bill becomes a law? The first step, according to the bill, is that constituents come together in support of new legislation, they call their congressman, and the congressman sponsors the bill. This is how we like to think the Republic works, whether we are talking about Congress or our state's legislature. Unfortunately, it isn't. Perhaps the most popular article passed around the nonpartisan reform community this week is a New York

I first heard the news that Ross Perot had died last Tuesday afternoon and it didn’t take long for the major media obituaries to appear. In public life in America, your obituary is written long before you die – literally and figuratively. Those of us who had been part of and partners with the Perot rebellion knew that the official “branding” of Ross Perot was already set in stone. The two-time independent presidential candidate in 1992 and 1996, whose millions of supporters sent a shockwave thr

Independent and third party candidates more often than conventional candidates clearly identify America’s core challenges, pains and crises. They sometimes present well-considered solutions, though they may not know enough about the legislative and executive branches of government to implement those solutions. Still, here are seven reasons why independent presidential debates and forums will save America in 2020. 1. Integrity Whether driven by public service or personal ego, every single Demo

We have come a long way as a country in terms of securing and protecting voting rights in the US. Still, the fight continues to give all voters, regardless of party affiliation, equal access to all stages of the taxpayer-funded election process. Touro Law Review just published a new article to educate legal scholars and the courts on where nonpartisan reform groups stand on equal voting rights in the US, especially as it pertains to the tens of millions of voters who are now registered independ

Poor Bernie Sanders. It’s not enough that he had the balls to challenge The Anointed One in the Democratic Party primary in 2016. It’s not enough that in doing so he split open a divide in his party that makes the San Andreas Fault look like a crevasse you could hop, skip or jump over wearing a sturdy hiking shoe. That Sanders did these things has already earned him a special place in the history of American progressivism. But now, Sanders is in the race for the 2020 nomination, no longer a lon