Editor's Note: Please see the corresponding number in the "Notes" for the source of the information.

Introduction

Now more than ever, police misconduct has rocketed to the forefront of our national conversation.

Unfortunately, the current system has proven unequipped to handle this misconduct and hold police accountable for their actions. (1) After all, an outsized number of police officers who violate their duties are never tried for their offenses, and those who are fired often “police hop” to policing jobs elsewhere. (2)

Editor's Note: This op-ed originally appeared in The Fulcrum and has been republished with permission from the publisher.

This is a call to people who love our country more than they hate their political opponents. It is our duty and our honor to put country before party.

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The nonpartisan reform group FairVote released a new report Wednesday that examines the impact ranked choice voting had on the 4 Democratic presidential primaries and caucus that used ranked choice voting for the first time in 2020. The conclusion? Voters took advantage of RCV, made few errors, and turned out in much higher numbers.

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. - El movimiento nacional a favor de la reforma electoral Ranked Choice Voting (Votación por orden de preferencia) le faltó solo un voto en el cabildo de San Diego, para aparecer en la boleta de este noviembre. 

‍SAN DIEGO, CALIF. – The national momentum for Top Four Ranked Choice Voting Reform fell one vote short of landing “Top4RCV” on the November ballot in the nation’s 8th largest City.

San Diego, which identifies itself as “America’s Finest City,” has a 9 member City Council made up of 6 Democrats, 2 Republicans, and 1 independent. A nonpartisan coalition of Council members --Mark Kersey (NPP), Barbara Bry (D), Monica Montgomery (D), and Chris Cate (R) -- voted in favor of putting the reform measure on the ballot.

The cross-partisan group VoteSafe announced Tuesday that leaders in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have answered the call to ensure all voters have a safe and secure voting option in November. 

The newly-formed state-based coalitions are led by GOP House Majority Leader Dave Reed and former Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania, and Attorney General Josh Kaul and former Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen in Wisconsin.

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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Proponents of expanded voting by mail during the pandemic won victories Monday in three states, two of them solid blue but one of them reliably red.

Voting is a right; This shouldn’t be a controversial statement but it is. The struggle to ensure that every adult United States citizen has the right to vote has been going on since the founding of our country. Right now, our right to vote is threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic and by apathy in some state legislatures.

In the wake of Bernie Sanders’ loss of the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, the Left has cried out, as it has in the past, for the creation of a third party. There is some merit to this idea, given that repeated attempts to fashion the Democratic Party into a force for progressive change have failed and likely always will. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The Left has been fooled many more times than once, most recently by the faux progressivism of Barack Obama.

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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The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked several hundred thousand Florida felons from exercising their new voting rights in next month's primary.

The decision was the first from the high court in one of the past decade's most important, impassioned and complicated stories about expanding democracy.