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Democracy

Why We Need to Take the Partisanship Out of Certifying Elections

Kevin Johnson

This op-ed by ERN Executive Director Kevin Johnson originally appeared in GOVERNING. It may be hard to remember now, but Jan. 6, 2021, wasn’t the first time the 2020 presidential election nearly went off the rails. Several swing states had already seen organized efforts to seriously challenge results, nowhere more dangerously than in Michigan, where party…

To defeat election denialism, we need partisans out of election management

Kevin Johnson

This op-ed by ERN Executive Director Kevin Johnson originally appeared in The Fulcrum. The threat could hardly be clearer: Some candidates for secretary of state deny the verified outcome of the 2020 election, raising serious questions about whether they’ll reject results – and the rule of law – if they gain office. In response, political opponents…

Declaring Who Wins Elections Is Not A Job For Partisans

Kevin Johnson
This post by By Kevin Johnson originally appeared on TalkingPointsMemo.  If the stars align, Congress could soon pass a much-needed overhaul of the Electoral Count Act (ECA), the 19th-century law governing presidential electoral-vote counting, whose ambiguities helped spawn chaos on January 6th. In pushing to reform the ECA, a bipartisan group of senators is acknowledging a dangerous...

The only major democracy in the world…

Kevin Johnson
This op-ed originally ran on The Fulcrum. This has been a summer of gut punches to the body politic. A Supreme Court bloc cobbled together by minority-backed presidents and a norm-abusing Senate has trampled precedent and lurched to extremes on the most divisive issues of our time. A presidential election that should have been laid...

US election deniers promoting democracy abroad defies reason

Edward McMahon

This op-ed by ERN Board Members Larry Garber and Edward McMahon originally appeared on The Hill. The power of the more than 200-year-old American model of democracy has encouraged people across the globe to fight for their rights and freedoms, often in the face of brutal authoritarians. We have personally seen the impact of U.S….

Michigan’s partisan gerrymander is gone. Next: partisan canvassing boards

Kevin Johnson

This op-ed by ERN Executive Director Kevin Johnson and The People’s Katie Fahey originally appeared in Bridge Michigan. In 2018, Michiganders of all sides won one of the greatest battles for basic fairness in the state’s history. Michigan “slayed the dragon” of partisan gerrymandering, taking election district drawing out of the self-dealing hands of legislators…

Politicians certifying election results is risky and unnecessary

Kevin Johnson

This post by By Kevin Johnson originally appeared on The Fulcrum.  In recent months, we’ve gotten a crash course in the ways that our election systems are now dangerously vulnerable to partisan interference and disorder. Numerous candidates for secretary of state deny the results of the 2020 election, including several who are, or likely will…

To Trust Election Results, We Must Trust The People Administering Them

Heather Balas

This post by By ERN Board Member Amber McReynolds and ERN VP of Programs Heather Balas originally appeared on TPM.  Amid growing concern about the prospects for a free and fair election in 2024, last week brought a rare piece of good news: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who famously stared down President Donald…

Ensuring election integrity should not come at the cost of compromising voter access

Larry Garber,

This post by Larry Garber and Avery Davis-Roberts originally appeared in The Fulcrum. Garber is an international elections expert and a member of the Carter Center‘s U.S. election expert team. Davis-Roberts is an associate director in the center’s Democracy Program. Proposed election law changes in Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere have again brought to the forefront…

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