The November election showed why Maryland needs more competition, more choices, and fewer barriers.

The state House passed legislation to open primary elections to Pennsylvania’s roughly 1.5 million independent voters, but the bill has not moved through the Senate.

Everyone is talking about the midterm elections and how the GOP is going to have a bad year. Sean discusses what happens after the elections and the votes are counted? Also here’s what most political analysts are missing: there is a third force in American politics that is already larger than either party in some states. In many states (like North Carolina, Alaska and Colorado) these voters already outnumber both Republicans and Democrats.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – The Pennsylvania State House passed a bill that would allow Independents to vote in the state’s primaries. House Bill 280, proposed by State Rep. Jared Solomon …

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That’s according to the final unofficial election results posted Wednesday, the last day for absentee ballots to arrive from U.S. citizens living abroad.

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In 2024, Nevada voters will see a ballot Question 3 strikingly similar to the question on Final Five voting from 2022. That’s because a constitutional amendment must be passed by voters twice in succession, according to Nevada law. And should voters approve Question 3 again this year, Nevada will become the second state (after Alaska) to implement this ambitious electoral voting reform system including a unified open primary and ranked choice general election. “After we won,” recalls Cesar Marquez of Nevada’s first passage of Final Five Voting in 2022, “Sondra, Doug, and I and so many others, we felt, okay, we now have two years to talk about ranked choice voting.” A former Tesla Engineer, Marquez is referring to his colleagues Doug Goodman of Nevadans for Election Reform and Dr. Sondra Cosgrove of Vote Nevada. In this episode, we learn how Goodman, a retired military veteran, began working on election reform in the Silver State a decade ago. Initially, Goodman lobbied extensively for legislative action before pivoting to the ballot initiative process. He recalls: “One of the questions I was posing to business leaders at the time was, if you had a more open electoral system, could that be a tiebreaker if a company was considering moving to Nevada?” Dr. Sonda Cosgrove, a history professor at Southern Nevada College, soon joined Goodman in that effort. She had noticed an alarming and counterintuitive trend in her efforts at Vote Nevada. Yes, more voters were registering to vote. But they were not voting in larger numbers. “And so we started realizing that they were being turned off right at the get-go in the primary,” says Cosgrove.” That's when... they were just kind of opting out.” Marquez joined forces with Goodman and Cosgrove to place Final Five Voting on that 2022 ballot. But he came at political reform from a very different direction. “The first thing I'll say is that I never liked politics, I still don't like politics,” admits Marquez. “ My background is in engineering, and I've worked in manufacturing for my whole career.” What do a military veteran, academic historian and engineer turned reformer have in common? Is ranked choice voting best demonstrated by a “rank the drink” event in English or “rank the taco” evening in Spanish? The Purple Principles discusses these and other election reform questions in this latest episode of our season-long state election reform series. We began in Idaho then traveled to Washington DC, Alaska, South Dakota and Arizona, before landing here in Nevada. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney. #rankedchoicevoting #openprimaries

“Everybody likes to think about these reforms as being revolutionary,” says Paul Johnson, former Mayor of Phoenix, now Co-Chair of Make Elections Fair AZ, on the record number of state level election reforms in play this year. “They’re not. City governments have been doing these reforms for about 50 to 60 years.” Johnson, a former Democrat turned Independent, is leading a third attempt at opening primary elections in Arizona to independent and unaffiliated voters through a 2024 citizen ballot initiative that also amends the state constitution to allow ranked choice general elections. He’s joined in this effort by GOP strategist Chuck Coughlin, a veteran of hundreds of candidate and issue campaigns in the Grand Canyon state and now treasurer at Make Elections Fair AZ. “The very basis of our thinking is that if you're going to use taxpayer money to run an election,” says Coughlin, “you have to treat every voter the same. You have to treat every candidate the same. I mean, that is a principle part of our American jurisprudence and the way we govern ourselves.” A Measured Approach In this episode, we learn how Johnson and Coughlin initially hoped to pursue the Alaska election Final Five Voting model of a unified open primary plus ranked choice general election. Ultimately, they decided on a measured approach with higher probability of success. “We did five statewide surveys trying to see if we could get that done, which would be a Final Five open primary, " says Coughlin. “I concluded in June of last year that that was not possible.... Paul and his colleagues came back and said, ‘Hey, we just want to do an open primary.’” Listen to the episode as Chuck and Paul share the data behind their incremental approach to election reform. Past Rivals Work Together We also hear how two political rivals (Paul & Chuck) joined forces in advocating for more sensible elections and pragmatic representation in the highly polarized state of Arizona. “I always liked to tease Chuck that the only job that he had in the governor's office was to destroy my career,” says Paul Johnson of two Gubernatorial campaign losses to candidates supported by Coughlin. “And he likes to tease me back, he did a pretty good job.” Is this the year Arizona voters embrace the principle of treating all voters and candidates the same in their elections? If so, this Arizona amendment could precede further general election reform via the legislature or citizen ballot process. Opening party-run primaries could even happen in the near term. This episode is part of our season-long non partisan election reform series. Previous episodes have visited Washington DC, Idaho and South Dakota. Upcoming episodes travel to Nevada, Colorado and Alaska. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.

“I like to say the stars are aligned for open primaries right now,” says South Dakota Open Primaries Director Joe Kirby. “I think there’s a realization that closed primaries simply don’t make sense when you’re in a single party state.” “I also think that Open Primaries will foster a more representative and functional government,” adds De Knudson, former Sioux Falls City Councilor and Co-Director of “Amendment H” - an effort to create a single unified primary of all candidates from which the top two advance to the general election. This 2024 South Dakota measure is more modest than reforms advanced by the same team eight years ago which failed by ten points on Election Day. “We learned a valuable lesson in 2016,” admits Kirby, a business entrepreneur also involved in political reform efforts for three decades. “We tried to do two things at once. We tried to bring open primaries to South Dakota at the same time we tried to remove party labels.” In this episode, John Opdycke, Founder and President of the national organization @OpenPrimariesOrg explains why the 2024 crop of non-partisan election reforms is more robust and more diverse. “Part of what I think is so healthy is that the national groups are saying, Hey, let us show you our research, let us show you what this looks like from up looking down,” says Opdycke, one of the nation’s foremost experts on election reform. “And the local people say, great, that's really helpful. Let us show you what our local polling looks like. Let us show you what our political culture looks like.” For Joe Kirby, De Knudson and many other supporters, Amendment H is an effort to turn away from political extremism and divisiveness and back toward traditional South Dakota values. “I really love South Dakota,” says Knudson. “I care lots about government. I just knew that I didn't have a choice. I had to give this one more shot, and I really am confident that we will win this on November 5th.” Tune in to find out more about the 2024 South Dakota open primaries initiative– past lessons learned and prospects for passage this year. This episode is part of our season long series on state level non partisan election reform ballot measures in 2024– from Washington DC to Alaska with numerous states in between– Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota, and, next up, Arizona. With a record number of state level reforms this year, stay tuned to see if the stars align in South Dakota and on a national level. #openprimaries #southdakota #politics @veteransforallvoters The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production; original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.

The Purple Principle visited #washingtondc to speak with election reformer Lisa D.T. Rice and the Make All Votes Count DC team working to gather signatures f...