Originally published in The Houston Chronicle on April 24, 2020. As if our politics weren't in terrible shape already, the pandemic seems likely to aggravate the deep rift in American society. While our country reels from a genuine American carnage, we're already seeing the first hints of the possible effect the crisis may have on our political process in this presidential election year...
Larry Garber has worked on overseas elections for 35 years and is on the board of Election Reformers Network. Thirty years ago this spring, I received a call from a colleague at the National Democratic Institute who was on assignment in Eastern Europe. A group of student activists in Bulgaria had expressed interest in monitoring their country's upcoming election, less than two months away...
Originally published in the National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy Digest. Overall, the dangers are much greater than the opportunities in terms of the pandemics impact on liberty and democracy, says Stanford University's Francis Fukuyama. I do think there are opportunities for improving policies and institutions, but right now the dangers are much more serious, because when people are afraid...
We join this letter from profound love of our country, and from personal experience with what freedom and democracy in the United States symbolize for people around the world. In working to strengthen democracy and human rights overseas, we have seen nations overcome monumental crises in pursuit of freedom. So often these heroic acts have been inspired by the symbol of America at its best...
Originally published in The Fulcrum | May 1, 2020. Fifty former foreign policy officials, politicians and experts at promoting democracy abroad have united behind a diplomatically worded but blunt warning: The coronavirus could rapidly incubate autocratic behavior that threatens the integrity of the presidential election....
Published in The Fulcrum. Regrettably, the bipartisan cooperation that enabled last month's $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package fell short when it came to addressing concerns about coronavirus and elections. Congress did allocate $400 million for state election preparation, but proposals to require more voting by mail and early in-person voting met with partisan rancor...
Originally Published: US News & World Report | April 7, 2020. It may be a sign of things to come: Wisconsin voters went to the polls Tuesday in what could be a pivotal race for the Democratic presidential nomination and during a time of national crisis. And they won't know who won for almost a week...
A wide variety of election management models, all of which are supposed to ensure legitimate elections, exist throughout the democratic world. It is normal that countries will choose different ways of conducting elections, as countries are in a sense, like snowflakes no two ones are identical.
Florida holds its March 17 primary, the odds are good that most voters aren't thinking about the health of global democracy. Most Americans don't focus on international affairs unless there's a crisis like war, terrorism or a pandemic. But a new report from Freedom House, an independent human-rights organization, documents that 2019 marked the 14th straight year that the global state of democracy and human rights declined.
Thank you Rob, it’s been a pleasure to get to know you and this great organization. It’s also an honor to co-host this event. When we got started, one of our first steps was to seek wisdom from Rob and Cynthia, and Rob, it was good to learn that conversation was a coming full circle, of sorts, to a conversation...