Editor's Note: This article originally published on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher.

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Gov. Larry Hogan is making one last effort to stymie partisan gerrymandering in Maryland before the next decade's election maps are drawn.

In the midst of a pandemic with social and political unrest, a violent effort to intimidate Congress and threats of violence at state capitals, I keep thinking about new beginnings.

New beginnings often require a death to occur first. It may be the death of an idea from which a new innovation emerges. It may be the death of winter, as the earth sits fallow, waiting for spring. It may be the death of a family matriarch and the beginning of our role as the elder. Or it may be the death of flawed national values, from which a new nation arises, like a phoenix.

In this episode of Toppling the Duopoly, nationally-recognized expert in election reform and host Shawn Griffiths interviews John Pudner, the executive director of the nonpartisan nonprofit Take Back Our Republic.

Election integrity became a hot button issue during and in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

Editor's note: This letter to the editor originally appeared in the Wichita Eagle, and has been republished on IVN with permission from the author.