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In discussions with an elderly voter in Colorado about Proposition 131, the unsuccessful 2024 ballot measure to create a nonpartisan primary with ranked choice voting (RCV), in the general election, we learned something important. This individual had voted against Proposition 131, casting his mail ballot on the day he received it. A week later, he received a campaign ad mailer that Colorado’s governor and Denver’s mayor had endorsed Proposition 131, which may have influenced his decision.

American elections are becoming less competitive, and the consequences are eroding democracy. As The New York Times journalists Nick Corasaniti and Michael Wines report this week, most congressional and state legislative races in 2024 were effectively decided by low-turnout primaries or weren’t contested at all.

Though we come from opposite coasts, we share a painful reality that many Americans know all too well: our communities have been devastated by disaster. One of us lives in California, where historic wildfires have ravaged coastal cities - destroying thousands of homes and businesses, displacing tens of thousands of people, and claiming more than two dozen lives.

A new report shows that runoff elections are not only expensive, but in 2024 were less effective than in any other election in modern history at providing adequate representation. 

Perhaps one of the most pervasive myths in American politics is that a voter should vote because it matters to them personally.

Trump won over independent voters in 2016, lost them in 2020. Can he win them again in 2024?

The 2024 presidential election is considered extremely tight and much like the 2020 election will be decided by less than 100,000 votes in a small handful of states – if polling is any indication of the state of the election.

In the United States, elections–and the governments they produce–are lagging indicators of public sentiment. Elections simply provide a quantitative measure of what the voters believe. The governments that emerge from elections merely establish order and discipline with respect to those policies and approaches that have already been emotionally and intellectually pioneered and adopted by the American people.

Close and contested elections are a part of American history, and the upcoming presidential election will likely continue this tradition.

For a democracy to function, one simple, central fact must be clear to all: who won. There is no disagreement about the winner of the Super Bowl or the Olympic gold medal in the shot put, and the same should be true for election results. But in polarized America, we’ve lost that clarity and public consensus.