


US election deniers promoting democracy abroad defies reason
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….

Wisconsin election takeover threatens our republican form of government
This post by Kevin Johnson and Al Vanderklipp originally appeared on The Fulcrum. Johnson and Vanderklipp are, respectively, the executive director and research fellow for the Election Reformers Network and the co-authors of “Nonpartisanship Works: How Lessons from Canada Can Reestablish Trust in U.S. Election Administration.” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has repeated the call for his state’s legislature to seize…

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

The US should help Palestinians vote regardless of potential outcomes
This post by Larry Garber originally appeared on The Hill. The ghost of 2006 hangs heavy over the heads of United States policymakers anticipating Palestinian elections scheduled for May 22. Hamas’s surprise victory over a divided Fatah in 2006 upended the plans of those within the Bush administration who had advocated for allowing the elections to proceed, notwithstanding the participation…

The time has come for nonpartisan state election leadership
This post by Kevin Johnson, Miles Rapoport, and Larry Diamond originally appeared on The Hill. Two secretaries of state were honored recently by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico’s Democratic secretary of state, and Kyle Ardoin, Louisiana’s Republican secretary of state, received the organization’s prestigious Patriot Award on behalf of all U.S election…

Hyperbole aside, Georgia’s new rules go against global principles for election fairness
This post by Kevin Johnson and Larry Garber originally appeared in The Fulcrum. Garber and Johnson advise The Carter Center, the global human rights and democracy foundation based in Atlanta, and helped create the Election Reformers Network, international election specialists who promote voting improvements in the United States. They are among the authors of the group’s September report,…

Why Judges, Not Lawmakers, Should Rule on Disputed Elections
This post originally appeared in GOVERNING. Disregard for the judgments of courts is a sure sign that democracy is in trouble. Donald Trump’s machinations after the Nov. 3 election centered, fundamentally, on overturning the many court rulings rejecting his claims of fraud. Channeling fomented partisan anger, Trump and his allies sought to replace the verdict…

America, Welcome to the Ranks of Struggling Democracies
This post originally appeared on the Foreign Policy website. Violent conflict over contested elections has plagued authoritarian and undemocratic countries around the world, as well as democracies that are troubled and threatened. On Wednesday, the United States became the newest member of this unfortunate club. Based on my experience working on election observation and democracy promotion…

To Fix the Electoral College, Change the Way Its Votes Are Awarded
This post originally appeared in GOVERNING. With new threats of ‘faithless legislatures’ ignoring the popular vote, reform is more urgent than ever. Allocating electoral votes proportionately would avoid election disasters and could have bipartisan appeal. — Happily, there was no drama when the nation’s presidential electors met on Monday to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Thanks in…