What happens when you marry a passionate group of pro-voter Americans to an encyclopedia? You get Ballotpedia.

No government public information officer or website can do what this non-partisan online political encyclopedia does - it hands Americans free, simple, useful, actionable information. It also takes the who, what, when, where… and then goes to unheard of lengths to offer a balanced "why".

The team even create new words when the one in common use becomes so partisan it blocks thoughtful discussion.

Voter suppression is a strategy to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing people from voting and is different from political campaigning.

Campaigning attempts to change likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters through persuasion.

Voter suppression attempts to reduce the number of voters who might vote against a candidate or proposition through other means, such as legal hurdles or physical intimidation.

The race for the 50th Congressional District in San Diego, California has been a page-turning, headline-grabbing feast for observers.

On the Saturday a week before Mother's Day, I participated in the 34th Annual Harlem Mother's Day Parade. I was there on behalf of the Committee for Independent Community Action (CICA), founded by Dr. Lenora Fulani.

The CICA consists of public housing residents, citywide activists, community organizers, and grassroots leaders fighting to protect public housing in New York City from the privatization that threatens to displace hundreds of thousands of public housing residents from their homes.

No one could accuse former CIA Director John Brennan of being a peacenik or too soft on the United States' enemies.

The lifelong CIA man (he started with the agency as a Mid-East analyst and station chief for 25 years) has faced criticism for overseeing a substantial increase in CIA drone strikes on targets in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Afghanistan.

Neal Simon is running for United States Senate. The successful businessman is an affirmed independent, and he is competing in bright blue Maryland against incumbent Democratic Senator Ben Cardin as Cardin seeks a third term.

Simon threw his hat in the ring at an interesting time in political history: Republicans are ‘retiring’ in droves, the House of Representatives appears broken, the Senate seems to be kind of holding it together, the White House is unpredictable, and the Supreme Court has Maryland's landmark redistricting case on its hands.

In April the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent.

That's the lowest it's been since December 2000, after six months at 4.1 percent. But the increase in new hires may have come at the cost of inflation and lower than projected increases in wages, with average hourly earnings up a scant 0.1 percent over the prior month and 2.6 percent year to date.

"Ranked choice voting" is gaining momentum in cities and states across the country. The attention it has gotten in places like Maine -- which will be the first state to use it for statewide elections -- has raised its profile as a popular alternative voting method than what is currently used in most jurisdictions in the US.

This attention also has many unfamiliar with the election reform asking: How does ranked choice voting work?

T.J. O’Hara, the host of Deconstructed, is joined by Kyle Bailey, the campaign manager of both Maine’s ranked choice voting and Terry Hayes for Governor.

The two discuss the history (and struggle) of ranked choice voting in Maine, the benefits of RCV, Maine’s history with independent and third party candidates, the difference between RCV and plurality voting, and more.

There is something happening in Colorado -- something big.

It's been a historic year already for independent candidates, and there is arguably no state in the nation where the independent revolution is burning brighter than Colorado.

It was one of the first states to fully legalize marijuana (along with Washington state) -- something both major political parties have resisted for decades.

Independent voters are the largest voting bloc, with nonpartisan registration surpassing the Republican and Democratic Parties.