News & Insights

This op-ed originally appeared in GOVERNING. Election specialists and national security experts have been gaming out scenarios for this November, assessing how candidates, supporters and media will respond if voting results are delayed or disputed. The 40 secretaries of state who are chief election officials also play important roles in these scenarios. Local-level officials handle ballot-counting and other key phases of an election, but secretaries of states’ decisions make a difference in tight races, and their words and actions significantly impact voter confidence...

Excerpt from "American Should Expect Election Chaos," by Senator Marco Rubio, published in Medium, August 6, 2020. "There are also steps we can take as elected officials. First, we must clearly signal to foreign adversaries that meddling in our elections will be met with a commensurately harsh response. Congress should immediately pass and President Trump should sign my bipartisan Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines (DETER) Act...

Originally published in The Fulcrum | July 10, 2020. The Supreme Court has disarmed one time bomb ticking away in our presidential election system the risk of "faithless" electors throwing an election to an undeserving candidate. Other critical problems remain, which the decision can play a part in helping us address...

Originally published in The Washington Post | July 10, 2020. Across the country, election officials are living with a palpable sense of dread. Their worry is less about who will win or lose on Election Day than about how our vast, diverse system of voting will function amid a pandemic. Evidence from some primaries this…

Election Reformers Network (ERN) joins with democracy activists and organizations around the world in mourning the death of Lorne Craner. Mr. Craner served as foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain, longtime president of the International Republican Institute, and Assistant Secretary of State. As a tireless advocate for democracy, Mr. Craner worked...

Election Reformers Network's Kevin Johnson leads Project 18 Vote's Patricia Keefer, Jay Berman, fmr. Chief of Staff for Senator Birch Bayh, American Promise co-founder Jeff Clements, and CEO of Bridge USA, Manu Meel in a discussion about the history of the 18-year-old vote and what we can learn from the 26th Amendment, which was passed in record time with bipartisan support.

Originally published in The Houston Chronicle on April 24, 2020. As if our politics weren't in terrible shape already, the pandemic seems likely to aggravate the deep rift in American society. While our country reels from a genuine American carnage, we're already seeing the first hints of the possible effect the crisis may have on our political process in this presidential election year...

Larry Garber has worked on overseas elections for 35 years and is on the board of Election Reformers Network. Thirty years ago this spring, I received a call from a colleague at the National Democratic Institute who was on assignment in Eastern Europe. A group of student activists in Bulgaria had expressed interest in monitoring their country's upcoming election, less than two months away...

Originally published in The Fulcrum | May 1, 2020. Fifty former foreign policy officials, politicians and experts at promoting democracy abroad have united behind a diplomatically worded but blunt warning: The coronavirus could rapidly incubate autocratic behavior that threatens the integrity of the presidential election....

We join this letter from profound love of our country, and from personal experience with what freedom and democracy in the United States symbolize for people around the world. In working to strengthen democracy and human rights overseas, we have seen nations overcome monumental crises in pursuit of freedom. So often these heroic acts have been inspired by the symbol of America at its best...