<div><p>Shawn is the Election Reform Editor for IVN.us. He studied history and philosophy at the University of North Texas, and joined the IVN team in 2012. He has several years of experie
Did you participate in the National Week of Conversation? The Bridge Alliance, along with 100 sponsoring organizations, community organizers, elected officials, and more, held hundreds of events -- public, online, and private -- in cities across the country from April 20-28 with one goal in mind: Put partisan bickering aside,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih9Ir0B5uGE At a briefing on Capitol Hill, the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation presented new public opinion data that shows American voters are eager for three key electoral reforms that would give voters a greater voice at the ballot box and
Several Arizona teachers are set to walkout of their classrooms Thursday in protest of low teacher salaries and in-classroom spending that put Arizona below nearly every state. School districts are even closing hundreds of schools in anticipation of how many teachers will participate. It's a topic that has
"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&
<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span> Most Americans agree that civility (more precisely, the lack of it) in American politics is a problem. Many would say our apparent inability
No more excuses for Maine politicians. The Maine Supreme Court upheld the state's Ranked Choice Voting law Tuesday, allowing an order by Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy that the secretary of state has to implement ranked choice voting for all statewide primary elections to stand. “Ranked-choice voting is
A bill in the Pennsylvania House to create an independent citizens' redistricting commission was rewritten to give the legislature even more control over the legislative redistricting process. Don't worry. I did a double take the first time I heard about this story too. According to Republican State
Are you tired of the partisan bickering? The two-sided, red vs. blue narrative that serves only to reinforce party platitudes rather than get to the heart of an issue? The Bridge Alliance, a powerful coalition of civic action groups, is behind a new effort to change all of that. Most
The testimony of Mark Zuckerberg on privacy protections and data collection on Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal will likely be the most watched and closely analyzed hearing of the year. People on all sides of the political spectrum have weighed in over social media in droves.
Maine businessman and independent state legislator Martin Grohman launched his campaign for Congress Tuesday. Grohman is running to represent Maine's First Congressional District against incumbent Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree. Like many independent candidates and most US voters, Grohman is fed up with the hyper-partisan gridlock that has crippled
Progress for All founder and law professor Tim Canova is taking another shot at unseating former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has been embroiled in lawsuits and scandals since the 2016 elections. This time, however, Canova is not running against Wasserman Schultz in the Democratic primary, but the general
Kennebec County Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy ordered Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap to implement ranked choice voting for the June primary elections Wednesday, not long after Dunlap reportedly told lawmakers he had no intention of doing so. Maine voters successfully acted against the legislature's attempt to