News & Insights

Statement from ERN Executive Director Kevin Johnson: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Moore v. Harper. This case is about the Independent State Legislature (ISL) theory and whether state legislatures are subject to checks and balances when they pass state laws governing federal elections. The Court's decision has the potential to put more power...

ERN in the Post-Election News Summary: David Brooks cites our work on election deniers running for secretary of state on PBS NewsHour. ERN opinion piece on the message from voters published in Talking Points Memo. Our call for secretaries of state running for office to recuse gets results in Washington. The Bangor Daily News editorializes in support of our position on...

Originally published in The Bangor Daily News. According to the nonprofit Election Reformers Network, 15 secretaries of state, both Democrats and Republicans, were on the ballot last Tuesday. Most of them were running for reelection to their current posts. The organization called on those officials to recuse themselves from any recount that might occur in...

Originally published in The Fulcrum. Four years ago, when the nation headed to the polls in the middle of Donald Trumps divisive term as president, half of eligible voters cast a ballot. Last week, preliminary data shows overall turnout was down a few percentage points. But some states saw an increase in voter participation. According...

This op-ed by ERN Executive Director Kevin Johnson originally appeared in TPM. With attention focused on the battle for control of Congress, some of the signs went under the radar. But last weeks results offered evidence for an encouraging takeaway: that voters understand the threat posed by our party-driven system of election management in today's hyper-partisan...

On Friday, November 11th, New York Times columnist David Brooks joined Judy Woodruff on PBS NewsHour to discuss the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections.

For those of us working to reduce partisanship in election administration and protect fair elections, last night brought a lot of good news, along with some bad, with more to understand in the days and weeks ahead. Here's one way to sum it up: The "Big Lie" lost a lot of ground, but the "Big...

Originally published in multiple outlets by the Associated Press. After votes are cast, officials check lists of voters against the number of ballots cast and research any discrepancies, which often are due to clerical errors or mistakes. Votes also have to go through the certification process at the local and then state levels...

Former White House Counsel and Law Professor Larry Schwartztol cited ERN research in his opinion piece on impartial elections for The Atlantic. The article explains that nonpartisan, professionalized election administration is the norm in many other democracies; the American system of allowing partisan politicians to run elections is an outlier.

Originally published on the PBS NewsHour website. In some states, Secretaries of State also perform non-election roles. They can oversee business licenses, or, as in Arizona, be first-in-line successors to the governorship. The Texas secretary of state publishes the governments rules and regulations, authorizes people as notaries public and acts as a senior advisor on border issues and...