With COVID-19 vaccines going into the pipeline, it’s reasonable to be optimistic about our collective health scenario for 2021. Unfortunately, Pfizer doesn’t seem to have an antidote for the ills that plague the body politic.

Pardon my pessimism, but partisanship feels pricklier than ever. The presidency notwithstanding, the preeminent political players have primarily preserved power.

A new report from the nonpartisan group FairVote reinforces what it and other political reform advocates and experts have said for years: Partisanship is becoming the primary determinant of electoral outcomes in nearly every election.

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

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New York City can move forward with its debut of ranked elections in seven weeks, because a state judge has turned back arguments the system would effectively disenfranchise minority voters.

The Electoral College has cast its official votes for president, cementing Joe Biden as the president-elect of the United States. Democrats and Biden supporters are celebrating, while many Republicans and Trump supporters scorn the process. 

Let’s put aside who we supported or voted for in the presidential election (the distinction between those verbs is important). Let’s take a moment to take a step back and as independent thinkers look at the aftermath of the 2020 election as objective viewers.

This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Email it to sandiego@ivn.us

Bernie Sanders’ loss of the Democratic Party’s nomination for president prompted some voters to cry out, as they have in the past, for the creation of a new party. There is merit to this idea, given that repeated attempts to fashion the Democratic Party into a force for progressive change have failed.