Posted by Russell Daniels on May 07, 2019 at 5:18 PM
written by Scott Powers for Florida Politics
A grassroots revolt is emerging among county Democrats in Florida as at least two county parties, in Miami-Dade and Brevard, are urging the Florida Democratic Party to open its 2020 presidential primary to independent voters.
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on May 07, 2019 at 5:14 PM
written by Dave Berman for Florida Today
The Brevard County Democratic Executive Committee has overwhelmingly approved a resolution, urging the Florida Democratic Party to allow nonpartisan voters to cast ballots in the state's Democratic primaries, beginning in 2020.
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on May 07, 2019 at 5:07 PM
written by David Smiley for The Miami Herald
The Miami-Dade Democratic Party wants independent voters to help select Democratic nominees for governor and Congress, and will push to completely change the way the state party holds primary elections.
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on April 16, 2019 at 2:08 PM
The Democratic presidential candidate field is very crowed and, so far, includes Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar. Governors Jay Inslee, former Congressman John Delaney, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and a few mayors, including South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. Former elected official Beto O'Rourke is running and former Vice President Joe Biden is allegedly considering. It seems like a new presidential candidate is announced every three days and it doesn't seem like it will slow down. The latest, by my count, is Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado.
Despite their numbers and diversity, none of these candidates are focusing on the political reality that more and more voters are rejecting party labels. 2020 will see a fiercely competitive primary election season, yet tens of millions of independent voters will be disenfranchised. The Democratic Party has a golden opportunity to bring independents — now the largest group of voters in the country — into the conversation and into their vision for the future, but they are squandering it.
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on April 16, 2019 at 1:58 PM
By all accounts New Mexico would seem to be a strong candidate for reform of their primary elections. At least that’s what we thought when we started working with local activists to build support there three years ago.
One of only nine states with completely closed primaries, New Mexico has seen rapid growth in the number of registered independent voters. In 2000, 15% of voters were not registered with either major party. Today, that number is 25% or approximately 300,000 people.
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on April 16, 2019 at 1:55 PM
There are hundreds, literally hundreds of organizations and individual campaigns working right now to fix the myriad of problems that face our political and electoral processes — from the local to the national levels. The organizations tackle voter rights, primary election reform, ballot access, gerrymandering reform, campaign finance reform, alternative voting methods, electing candidates outside the two major parties, and more.
The following are 10 of the biggest organizations working to reform elections and give voters more choice at the ballot box in 2020:
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on April 16, 2019 at 1:49 PM
A pair of proposals from the All Voters Vote (AVV) committee would open up Florida’s primary elections to all voters, even those not affiliated with a political party, by setting up a jungle primary system starting in 2024.
The campaign was first reported in Wednesday’s edition of Sunburn.
“Florida’s current system of excluding the vast majority of voters from participating in most important elections is just wrong,” said Eugene Stearns, founding partner of Stearns Weaver Miller. Stearns is one of several people hoping to spearhead the effort.
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on April 16, 2019 at 1:43 PM
Some of Miami’s biggest political boosters are resurrecting a failed ballot initiative to completely overhaul Florida’s primary elections, saying the financial support that eluded them four years ago has come around.
Just as they did in 2015, the non-profit All Voters Vote on Tuesday submitted petition forms to the Florida Secretary of State for review, reigniting an effort to bring “jungle primaries” to Florida and open the August elections to all of the state’s 13 million voters.
The organization could start collecting the first of some 766,000 signed petitions as soon as next week in order to force two constitutional amendments onto the 2020 ballot, one related to state campaigns and another for federal.
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on April 16, 2019 at 1:37 PM
Non-affiliated voters, the fastest growing group of registered voters in Oregon, are afforded second-class status. We cannot vote in the major-party primaries, often times the only competitive race.
Secretary of State Dennis Richardson correctly recognizes this problem. I applaud him for speaking out. But his separate-but-equal solution, a non-affiliated voter-only primary, misses the mark.
Read morePosted by Russell Daniels on April 16, 2019 at 1:29 PM
As a business owner and lifelong resident of Michigan, I am proud to have stood with so many of my fellow citizens soliciting signatures for days and weeks on end to get the “Nonpartisan Redistricting” and “Promote the Vote” initiatives on the ballot and successfully passed in the 2018 midterm election. They were a big win for Michigan democracy and important steps on a journey to a more representative government.
Yet, there remains a large obstruction in our path to achieving a healthy, functioning government in Michigan.
Read more