On this episode of Toppling the Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths talks with Jeff Clements, the president of American Promise, a nonpartisan group taking on the challen

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

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When Sen. Joe Manchin's office told CNN this week that he opposes the For the People Act, the West Virginia Democrat struck a fatal blow to his party's signature legislation to overhaul the elections, redistricting, campaign finance and ethics rules.

It is only May and already 2021 has been a monumental year for ranked choice voting. Not only is RCV being used for the first time in New York City, but 23 Utah cities have passed ordinances to use it in upcoming elections. 

With S1 going to markup before the U.S. Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday, May 11, the inherent hypocrisy behind HR1/S1 - the ‘For the People Act’ must be called out. But it won't happen as part of the public hearing process, because there won’t be any one present that will raise it.

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The movement to take control of primaries out of the hands of political parties is growing. However, nonpartisan primary systems are only in place in a few states, and the only nonpartisan system in the South, Louisiana’s primary, is being targeted by partisan insiders. Fortunately, a bill that would have closed congressional primaries in the state was just dropped by its sponsor.

We all know the system is broken. It’s rigged. It does not work. How do we know? Because our leaders are not producing solutions to the issues we care about. No one is listening, just talking past each other.

But what if the system is working the way it was designed to work? What if politicians are operating very rationally and logically based on incentives of the political system in place?

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

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Now that the Census Bureau has finally announced which states have gained or lost congressional seats, attention turns to the legislative bodies and commissions that will be drawing new maps for the next round of elections.

Scot Chisholm, Executive Chairman and Founder, talks to Barbara and Neil about how a pub crawl fundraiser in San Diego turned into