News & Insights

Originally published in Election Law Blog. It's no secret that trust in U.S. elections is worryingly low. But a new survey points the way towards a promising area for bipartisan reforms to shore up confidence in our elections: impartial election administration. The nationwide poll of 1,498 likely voters commissioned by Election Reformers Network (ERN) and released last week delves more deeply into how voters think elections should be run...

This op-ed by ERN Executive Director Kevin Johnson originally appeared in The Fulcrum. The threat could hardly be clearer: Some candidates for secretary of state deny the verified outcome of the 2020 election, raising serious questions about whether they'll reject results and the rule of law if they gain office. In response, political opponents...

Originally published by the Northwest News Network. A poll released Tuesday by a small nonprofit the Election Reformers Network found that a wide majority of Americans want election administrators to be free from close party ties. In the online survey of 1,498 likely voters, over two-thirds of respondents (including 66% of Democrats, 69%...

Originally published by The Associated Press. Partisan officials are involved in certifying elections, something experts worry about after nearly two years of conspiracy theories falsely claiming the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Republican former President Donald Trump. There is no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulated voting machines, and reviews in battleground states confirmed Democrat Joe Biden's win. In 45 states, the local boards that handle...

Election Reformers Network (ERN) cheered the passage in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday of a bipartisan bill to prevent subversion of the results of a presidential election, and urged the U.S. Senate to pass their version promptly. The Presidential Election Reform Act would fix dangerous flaws and vague language in the 1887 law...

The Big Lie, the denial that the 2020 election outcome was legitimate, continues to have ongoing, harmful effects on American democracy. Election-related misinformation has spread like wildfire online, helping to fuel the passage of new state laws that restrict...

Originally published on The Fulcrum. "Partisan machinations have increasingly shaken the faith in the integrity of the election process. Election deniers were just the start, but things have escalated to the point where some election administrators loyal to their party have refused to certify election results for political reasons...

This post by By Kevin Johnson originally appeared on TalkingPointsMemo. If the stars align, Congress could soon pass a much-needed overhaul of the Electoral Count Act (ECA), the 19th-century law governing presidential electoral-vote counting, whose ambiguities helped spawn chaos on January 6th. In pushing to reform the ECA, a bipartisan group of senators is acknowledging a dangerous...

Originally published on the AP News website. [F]ederal courts have gained more legal authority to examine evidence and question witnesses, and to address claims related to state-level elections, said Kevin Johnson, executive director of the Election Reformers Network. The nonpartisan group advocates for ranked choice voting and independent redistricting among other election reforms. Mutual policing...

Originally published on the Democracy Journal website by Spenser Mestel. Of the 137 elected secretaries of state serving since 2000, one-third have endorsed a candidate running in a race under their supervision. Twelve have served as co-chair (or equivalent) of a presidential election campaign, according to Election Reformers Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to