Anyone who has followed the pro-voter, pro-democracy reform space for even a small period of time knows America’s political processes are flawed. It may not even come as a surprise to find out that the US is not even considered close to being the world’s role model in democracy.

The RNC will vote on a rule change this month that will require candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president to vow not to participate in debates hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates. This could mean that in the immediate future, we could go back to a period in time when televised presidential debates were not common.

The New York Times reports:

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

There’s some good news in the latest version of an annual study of government corruption: The United States didn’t become more corrupt for the first time in five years. However, the U.S. ranking dropped while many countries showed improvement over the past year.