Originally published in Forbes | January 18, 2021 By Sebastien Roblin Since the 1980s, promoting democracy has remained a basic tenet of U.S. foreign policy, one supported by a network of partner non-governmental organizations and firms. And that stance, despite the persistence of certain infamous exceptions, has generally been maintained for decades with bipartisan support….
Description: January 4, 2021: Georgians return to the voting booth Jan. 5 to settle two of the most hotly contested Senate races in history. Did you know that Georgia is one of the only states that holds runoffs? Why? And how does it work in other places? What’s likely to happen if these races end…
Originally published in The New York Times Opinion | December 15, 2020 By Susan D. Hyde and Elizabeth N. Saunders After the Electoral College vote on Monday affirming his election, Joe Biden declared that “nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can extinguish” the “flame of democracy.” Mr. Biden’s speech and the…
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This post appeared on The Carnegie Endowment website. BY ASHLEY QUARCOO, THOMAS CAROTHERS Competitive elections may be a hallmark of democracy, but in severely polarized political contexts they can exacerbate tensions that end up ripping apart democratic norms and institutions. They can trigger unfounded accusations of fraud, fuel claims of an election that has been stolen,…
This post originally appeared on FairVote’s website. Electoral Systems 101 There are two main families of electoral systems in the world: proportional and winner-take-all. All single-winner systems are, by definition, winner-take-all. Multi-winner systems may be proportional or winner-take all. Single-winner systems vs Multi-winner systems Sometimes it makes sense to elect just one person. For example, a…
This post originally appeared on The Brennan Center website. Automatic voter registration (AVR) is an innovative policy that streamlines the way Americans register to vote. AVR makes two simple, yet transformative, changes to the way our country has traditionally registered voters. First, AVR makes voter registration “opt-out” instead of “opt-in”—eligible citizens who interact with government agencies…
This post originally appeared on the Vox website. By Andrew Prokop The main reason for partisan gerrymandering in the US is that in most states, redistricting is handled by self-interested politicians in state legislatures. The most commonly proposed reform would take gerrymandering out of politicians’ hands entirely, and let an independent nonpartisan commission handle the job. Several…
