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Marvin Cheng

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Saurya Sharma

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Lee Allan

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Olivia Allan

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Over nine decades, efforts to amend the US Constitution to recognize women's rights have faced major challenges.

Congress finally passed such legislation, known as the Equal Rights Amendment, in 1972. The amendment would recognize women's equal rights to men under the law.

Despite concerted campaigns by women's rights groups, it fell short of the 38 states that needed to ratify it in order for it to become part of the Constitution. The original deadline for states to ratify was 1979. Congress extended the deadline to 1982, but even then it still fell three states short of passage.

Nevertheless, women's rights activists have continued working to get states to ratify it.
Related: Can quotas solve gender inequality in government?
Many ERA proponents argue that the deadline is irrelevant because the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits changes to the salaries of congressional legislators, was ratified in 1992, 203 years after it was introduced. The same could happen to the ERA, they argue. They maintain that Congress has the power to change the deadline and recognize the 38 ratification votes to approve the amendment.

Some constitutional experts, however, argue that it may be too late, since the deadline passed more than three decades ago. They also suggest that, while its passage would have symbolic importance, the ERA might only make a difference at the margins where the law still allows sex discrimination.

I'm a scholar who studies gender and politics. Here's a quick summary of how the country got to this point and the barriers that still exist to adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

'Ladies against women'

Women's rights advocates argue that sex discrimination is a pervasive problem that could be resolved by the ERA. Even though the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment prohibits states from denying any person equal protection under the law, women's rights are not explicitly guaranteed.
Related: Before he was president, H.W. Bush championed family planning
The push for equal rights heated up in the 1920s after women gained the right to vote. Alice Paul, a suffragette, proposed the first version of an Equal Rights Amendment in 1923. The proposal was adopted and turned into proposed legislation by two Kansas Republicans, Sen. Charles Curtis and Rep. Daniel Anthony Jr., and was brought up during every congressional session between 1923 and 1971 without success.

The idea of an Equal Rights Amendment, however, gained momentum among politicians and the broader public. World War II opened many doors for women, who filled gaps in the labor force while men were off fighting. During this time, women were welcomed into politics, onto juries, openly wooed by educational institutions and encouraged to take up male-dominated majors such as math, science and technology.

By 1970, the Equal Rights Amendment had been endorsed by four sitting presidents - Republicans Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, and Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. The fledgling feminist group, the National Organization for Women, adopted the passage of the ERA in its 1967 Bill of Rights for Women and began staging massive demonstrations and lobbying politicians in the late 1960s and early 1970s in an effort to get Congress to pass the amendment.
Related: These are the women who made history in this year's midterm elections
Finally, in 1972, the ERA passed both houses of Congress. The Amendment would have seven years to be ratified by three-fourths, or 38, of the 50 states.

While 30 states ratified the ERA in 1972 and 1973, the amendment ultimately came up three states short of approval by the 1979 deadline.

This was in large part due to the efforts of conservative women's organizations such as Eagle Forum and Concerned Women for America that opposed it. Conservative women regarded the ERA as a threat to the family and child-rearing because it would disrupt traditional gender roles. They also believed women would lose, among other things, their exemptions from the draft and combat duty.

States such as Illinois and Florida became battlegrounds for liberal and conservative women fighting over the amendment. Feminists successfully lobbied Congress to extend the ERA's ratification deadline to June 30, 1982. The ERA, however, was not ratified by the three states needed to ensure its passage. In 1982, conservative women proclaimed the Equal Rights Amendment officially dead.

Another chance?
Related: The Violence Against Women Act is unlikely to deter domestic violence - here's why
A number of recent events have put the ERA back on the political agenda: high-profile allegations of sexual assault, the #MeToo movement and, among other issues, increasing restrictions on women's access to abortion.

Since 2017, two more states - Nevada and Illinois - have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. Supporters are now rallying support in Virginia, hoping it will the next and final state to ratify it in 2019.

At the same time, for a number of reasons, Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, South Dakota and Kentucky rescinded their ERA ratifications between 1972 and 1982. Some state legislators argued that the amendment was too controversial given its potential to upend traditional gender roles and legalize what they called "abortion on demand."

So, even if Virginia legislators ratify the amendment, the fate of the Equal Rights Amendment is unclear.

The Supreme Court could weigh in on whether these reversals should impact the amendment's addition to the Constitution. But, it is not clear that it would. In fact, the Supreme Court opted not to rule on a rescinded ratification in 1939 on the Child Labor Amendment whose ratification period had expired.
Deana Rohlinger, Professor of Sociology, Florida State University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Likewise, it's unclear how Congress will respond since the amendment expired decades ago. Congress certainly has the power to ignore the five rescinded ratifications - it has done so in the past. But, in a highly polarized political environment, that may prove difficult.

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In 2019, women's rights are still not explicitly recognized in US Constitution

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Over nine decades, efforts to amend the US Constitution to recognize women's rights have faced major challenges. Congress finally passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. The amendment would recognize women's equal rights to men under the law. But it still hasn't been ratified in all 50 states.

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Leo Hogroian

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Universal Healthcare for the United States of America

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Universal Healthcare for the United States of America

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Gyumin Na

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Legalizing Euthanasia for Medical Reasons.

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Legalizing Euthanasia for Medical Reasons.

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Jihun Yio
Those diagnosed with terminal illnesses should be able to opt for a medically induced coma followed by a painless death instead of being forced to endure a long and painful death.

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The industrial development of the Moon is a vital step in human expansion into the Solar System. Economically developing the Moon will prove an excellent long term investment that will greatly benefit those all around the world.

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Michael Vu

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A high dependence on agriculture, as measured by the number of people employed in the sector, leaves the PoU 9.6 percentage points higher (25 percent). For low-income countries, the increase is equal to 13.6 percentage points (29 percent).

The finding is different for middle-income countries where the rise in PoU is less pronounced and occurs later (from 2015-2016). This tends to indicate that middle-income countries were able to absorb the impacts of increased exposure to climate extremes, but may not have been able to cope as well in the 2015-2016 period, possibly due to the severity of exposure to El Niño.

Other factors may have also come into play during this period, for example the economic slowdowns that many Latin American countries experienced, which reduced the fiscal environment to implement social programmes and thus diminished these countries' capacity to cope with the aftermath of extreme climate events.

Extreme events & food crises

While hunger is on the rise, it is equally alarming that the number of people facing crisis-level food insecurity continues to increase.

In 2017, almost 124 million people across 51 countries and territories faced "crisis" levels of acute food insecurity or worse, requiring immediate emergency action to safeguard their lives and preserve their livelihoods. This represents an increase compared to 2015 and 2016, when 80 and 108 million people, respectively, faced crisis levels.

Climate related disasters account now for more than 80 percent of all major internationally reported disasters.

In 34 of these 51 countries, more than 76 percent of the total populations facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse - nearly 95 million people - were also affected by climate shocks and extremes. Where conflict and climate shocks occur together, the impact on acute food insecurity is more severe. In 2017, 14 out of the 34 food-crisis countries experienced the double impact of both conflict and climate shocks, which led to significant increases in the severity of acute food insecurity.

Floods cause more climate-related disasters globally than any other extreme climate event, with flood-related disasters seeing the highest increase - 65 percent - in occurrence over the last 25 years. The frequency of storms is not increasing as much as that of floods, but storms are the second most frequent driver of climate-related disasters.

Climate variability impact on all dimensions of Food Security

The majority of people most vulnerable to climate shocks and natural hazards are the world's 2.5 billion small-scale farmers, herders, fishers and forest-dependent communities, who derive their food and income from renewable natural resources.

In 2015-2016, the drought caused by El Niño resulted in losses of 50-90 percent of the crop harvest in the dry corridor, especially in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Climate variability and extremes have the strongest direct impact on food availability, given the sensitivity of agriculture to climate and the primary role of the sector as a source of food and livelihoods for the rural poor. However, the overall fallout is far more complex and greater than the impacts on agricultural productivity alone.

Climate variability and extremes are undermining all dimensions of food security: food availability (with losses in productivity that undermine food production and increase food imports); food access (causing spikes in food prices and volatility, especially following climate extremes, income loss for those who depend on agriculture); food utilization and food safety (worsened or reduced dietary consumption, reduced quality and safety of food because of crop contamination, outbreaks of pests and diseases because of rainfall intensity or changes in temperature.

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SOFI 2018 - The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World

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A high dependence on agriculture, as measured by the number of people employed in the sector, leaves the PoU 9.6 percentage points higher (25 percent). For low-income countries, the increase is equal to 13.6 percentage points (29 percent). The finding is different for middle-income countries where the rise in PoU is less pronounced and occurs later (from 2015-2016).

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Isaac Putla
The biggest question politicians ask whenever a new spending proposal or program arises is "who's going to pay for it?" To often, they pass such legislation without answering that question. The reason they do this is because they know the answer. YOU are paying for it.

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Some years ago, Rudolph Penner offered an oft-repeated response to politicians who had used proposed changes in the budget process to bolster their credentials as deficit hawks. " The problem," he said, "is not the process, the problem is the problem. "

What Penner, Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987, meant is that politicians have it within their power to cut deficits and limit public debt without rewriting the process first. All they have to do is vote to cut spending or raise taxes. Politicians sometimes use discussion of the process to avoid responsibility for directly addressing the problem.

While Penner certainly had a point, the persistence of rising government debt over many decades, and in many different political settings around the world, suggests that the problem isn't solely a function of inadequate political leadership.

Pierre Yared, a macroeconomist at Columbia University, provides a useful summary of what recent academic literature and empirical evidence has to say on this question, primarily from a political economy perspective. He finds that the U.S. debt problem is part of a larger pattern across many advanced economies and is rooted in factors related to democratic governance.

He cites three reasons elected leaders are becoming more excessively focused than they used to be on short-term political and economic outcomes at the expense of long-term considerations.

First, the electorate is aging. All voters have concerns both about their present circumstances as well as what will happen in the future, but not all voters weigh the present and future equally. Older citizens, quite naturally, focus less on what might happen many years from now than on what might happen to their social support system in the very near future. Younger workers tend to place more emphasis on the long term because they see themselves taking an active role in their societies well into the future. Western democracies are in the midst of a profound demographic transformation, with rapid aging and low birth rates. Thus, the electorate is becoming progressively older with each election. Politicians are responding to the shifting age profiles of their voters by emphasizing protection of current benefits at the expense of higher deficits and debt.

Second, the "tragedy of the commons" means no political party is willing to take full responsibility for its deficit-increasing actions, or for fixing problems created by politicians elected in previous years, because they know their political opponents have no incentive or intention of acting responsibly either (this problem was long ago identified by the pioneers of public choice economics). Instead, political parties see short-term benefit from taking quick action when they can to promote their spending and taxation priorities, knowing that some of the responsibility for their actions will fall on their political opponents. As democracies become more polarized and factionalized, political parties become even less willing to assume responsibility for problems they see as being created by others and inconsistent with their agendas and political ambitions.

Third, as democracies become more competitive, political parties are less certain how long they will remain in power, and thus also less willing to take a longer-term perspective. This dynamic is especially relevant in countries that, in earlier times, had longer periods of one-party dominance but which now are characterized by more rapid swings in party control. As political parties increasingly fear their time in power will be short, they have an incentive to put their priorities in place while they can.

As these structural causes of deficits and debt have become more widely understood, many countries have adopted fiscal rules to correct for the biases in their political processes that push toward higher annual deficits and ever-growing debt. In 1990, only 7 countries had such rules in place constraining their budgetary decisions; by 2015, the number had grown to 92.

Fiscal rules impose budgetary constraints on all politicians and political parties in a country, now and into the future. Once a fiscal rule is in place, it must of course be enforced to be taken seriously. The rules work best when voters come to see their value, and punish political parties and politicians who would overturn them.

The evidence shows that fiscal rules do work to an extent, but they don't make deficits vanish. In a comprehensive overview covering many years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that countries with such rules have annual budget deficits that are smaller by an average of 0.5 percent of GDP compared to countries without such rules.

Switzerland is an interesting case study. In 2001, Swiss citizens voted to limit the growth rate of central government spending to the growth rate of tax revenue. The limit, called the Swiss Debt Brake (SDB), is designed to allow some smoothing over time to accommodate periods of slow economic growth or recessions. After adoption of the SDB, the Swiss government made other adjustments in its internal budget procedures to ensure compliance with the new restraint on spending growth.

Since the SDB was imposed, debt has been stabilized and is now declining. In 2002, Swiss government debt was equal to nearly 60 percent of GDP. As of 2015, the debt had fallen to about 43 percent of GDP. U.S. federal debt, by contrast, rose from 33 percent of GDP in 2002 to 73 percent of GDP in 2015.

There are major differences between the political cultures in Switzerland and the U.S. The Swiss regularly settle important questions of public policy through direct voting on constitutional amendments. In the U.S., constitutional change is very rare, and the expectation is that once amendments are adopted, it won't be easy to change them again or reverse course (Prohibition being an obvious exception to the rule). Moreover, fiscal rules have technical and definitional aspects to them that are not easily addressed in permanent constitutional language. Statutory fiscal rules would be more easily amended with experience.

There's no simple solution to the problem of rising U.S. debt, however. New fiscal rules would require many adjustments both within Congress and the executive branch. The starting point might be to agree on a fiscal goal, such as keeping debt to no more than 60 percent of GDP (it is 78 percent this year). The law requiring a presidential budget and the congressional budget process would then need to be amended, to require both branches of government to adopt budgets that move toward the agreed upon goal over time.

Policies and budgets that would not comply with the debt target, or which move in the wrong direction, would face very high political hurdles. Budgets that do not make sufficient progress toward the goal also would be very hard to adopt. The objective should be a gradual change in political expectations for voters and politicians alike, so that massive deficit spending when the economy is strong is no longer tolerated as business as usual.

Democratic governance has an Achilles' heel, one which the architects of American government fully understood. Tomorrow's citizens don't have a vote today, and so elected leaders do not pay sufficient attention to their interests. One way to correct for this bias is by constraining the decisions that today's leaders can make, to prevent the imposition of excessive financial burdens on future generations of voters. Many other advanced economies have taken steps in this direction. The U.S. should too.

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Fiscal rules can help fix the budget process - AEI

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Some years ago, Rudolph Penner offered an oft-repeated response to politicians who had used proposed changes in the budget process to bolster their credentials as deficit hawks. " The problem," he said, "is not the process, the problem is the problem.

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The National Debt Resolution and Spending Reform

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Olivia Ottomanelli

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Wind turbines and solar panels are an increasingly common sight. But why? What are the benefits of renewable energies-and how do they improve our health, environment, and economy?

This page explores the many positive impacts of clean energy, including the benefits of wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biomass. For more information on their negative impacts-including effective solutions to avoid, minimize, or mitigate-see our page on The Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Technologies.

Less global warming

Human activity is overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions. These gases act like a blanket, trapping heat. The result is a web of significant and harmful impacts, from stronger, more frequent storms, to drought, sea level rise, and extinction.

In the United States, about 29 percent of global warming emissions come from our electricity sector. Most of those emissions come from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas [ 1, 2].

What is CO2e?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most prevalent greenhouse gas, but other air pollutants-such as methane-also cause global warming. Different energy sources produce different amounts of these pollutants. To make comparisons easier, we use a carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2e-the amount of carbon dioxide required to produce an equivalent amount of warming.

In contrast, most renewable energy sources produce little to no global warming emissions. Even when including "life cycle" emissions of clean energy (ie, the emissions from each stage of a technology's life-manufacturing, installation, operation, decommissioning), the global warming emissions associated with renewable energy are minimal [ 3].

The comparison becomes clear when you look at the numbers. Burning natural gas for electricity releases between 0.6 and 2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour (CO2E/kWh); coal emits between 1.4 and 3.6 pounds of CO2E/kWh. Wind, on the other hand, is responsible for only 0.02 to 0.04 pounds of CO2E/kWh on a life-cycle basis; solar 0.07 to 0.2; geothermal 0.1 to 0.2; and hydroelectric between 0.1 and 0.5.

Renewable electricity generation from biomass can have a wide range of global warming emissions depending on the resource and whether or not it is sustainably sourced and harvested.

Increasing the supply of renewable energy would allow us to replace carbon-intensive energy sources and significantly reduce US global warming emissions.

For example, a 2009 UCS analysis found that a 25 percent by 2025 national renewable electricity standard would lower power plant CO2 emissions 277 million metric tons annually by 2025-the equivalent of the annual output from 70 typical (600 MW) new coal plants [ 4].

In addition, a ground-breaking study by the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) explored the feasibility of generating 80 percent of the country's electricity from renewable sources by 2050. They found that renewable energy could help reduce the electricity sector's emissions by approximately 81 percent [ 5].

Improved public health

The air and water pollution emitted by coal and natural gas plants is linked with breathing problems, neurological damage, heart attacks, cancer, premature death, and a host of other serious problems. The pollution affects everyone: one Harvard University study estimated the life cycle costs and public health effects of coal to be an estimated $74.6 billion every year. That's equivalent to 4.36 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced-about one-third of the average electricity rate for a typical US home [ 6].

Most of these negative health impacts come from air and water pollution that clean energy technologies simply don't produce. Wind, solar, and hydroelectric systems generate electricity with no associated air pollution emissions. Geothermal and biomass systems emit some air pollutants, though total air emissions are generally much lower than those of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants.

In addition, wind and solar energy require essentially no water to operate and thus do not pollute water resources or strain supplies by competing with agriculture, drinking water, or other important water needs. In contrast, fossil fuels can have a significant impact on water resources: both coal mining and natural gas drilling can pollute sources of drinking water, and all thermal power plants, including those powered by coal, gas, and oil, withdraw and consume water for cooling.

Biomass and geothermal power plants, like coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, may require water for cooling. Hydroelectric power plants can disrupt river ecosystems both upstream and downstream from the dam. However, NREL's 80-percent-by-2050 renewable energy study, which included biomass and geothermal, found that total water consumption and withdrawal would decrease significantly in a future with high renewables [ 7].

Inexhaustible energy

Strong winds, sunny skies, abundant plant matter, heat from the earth, and fast-moving water can each provide a vast and constantly replenished supply of energy. A relatively small fraction of US electricity currently comes from these sources, but that could change: studies have repeatedly shown that renewable energy can provide a significant share of future electricity needs, even after accounting for potential constraints [ 9].

In fact, a major government-sponsored study found that clean energy could contribute somewhere between three and 80 times its 2013 levels, depending on assumptions [8]. And the previously mentioned NREL study found that renewable energy could comfortably provide up to 80 percent of US electricity by 2050.

Jobs and other economic benefits

Compared with fossil fuel technologies, which are typically mechanized and capital intensive, the renewable energy industry is more labor intensive. Solar panels need humans to install them; wind farms need technicians for maintenance.

This means that, on average, more jobs are created for each unit of electricity generated from renewable sources than from fossil fuels.

Renewable energy already supports thousands of jobs in the United States. In 2016, the wind energy industry directly employed over 100,000 full-time-equivalent employees in a variety of capacities, including manufacturing, project development, construction and turbine installation, operations and maintenance, transportation and logistics, and financial, legal, and consulting services [ 10]. More than 500 factories in the United States manufacture parts for wind turbines, and wind power project installations in 2016 alone represented $13.0 billion in investments [ 11].

Other renewable energy technologies employ even more workers. In 2016, the solar industry employed more than 260,000 people, including jobs in solar installation, manufacturing, and sales, a 25% increase over 2015 [ 12]. The hydroelectric power industry employed approximately 66,000 people in 2017 [ 13]; the geothermal industry employed 5,800 people [ 14].

Increased support for renewable energy could create even more jobs. The 2009 Union of Concerned Scientists study of a 25-percent-by-2025 renewable energy standard found that such a policy would create more than three times as many jobs (more than 200,000) as producing an equivalent amount of electricity from fossil fuels [ 15].

In contrast, the entire coal industry employed 160,000 people in 2016 [ 26].

In addition to the jobs directly created in the renewable energy industry, growth in clean energy can create positive economic "ripple" effects. For example, industries in the renewable energy supply chain will benefit, and unrelated local businesses will benefit from increased household and business incomes [ 16].
Listen to energy expert Paula Garcia talk about renewable energy progress in the US on the Got Science? Podcast:
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Local governments also benefit from clean energy, most often in the form of property and income taxes and other payments from renewable energy project owners. Owners of the land on which wind projects are built often receive lease payments ranging from $3,000 to $6,000 per megawatt of installed capacity, as well as payments for power line easements and road rights-of-way. They may also earn royalties based on the project's annual revenues. Farmers and rural landowners can generate new sources of supplemental income by producing feedstocks for biomass power facilities.

UCS analysis found that a 25-by-2025 national renewable electricity standard would stimulate $263.4 billion in new capital investment for renewable energy technologies, $13.5 billion in new landowner income from? biomass production and/or wind land lease payments, and $11.5 billion in new property tax revenue for local communities [ 17].

Stable energy prices

Renewable energy is providing affordable electricity across the country right now, and can help stabilize energy prices in the future.

Although renewable facilities require upfront investments to build, they can then operate at very low cost (for most clean energy technologies, the "fuel" is free). As a result, renewable energy prices can be very stable over time.

Moreover, the costs of renewable energy technologies have declined steadily, and are projected to drop even more. For example, the average price to install solar dropped more than 70 percent between 2010 and 2017 [ 20]. The cost of generating electricity from wind dropped 66 percent between 2009 and 2016 [ 21]. Costs will likely decline even further as markets mature and companies increasingly take advantage of economies of scale.

In contrast, fossil fuel prices can vary dramatically and are prone to substantial price swings. For example, there was a rapid increase in US coal prices due to rising global demand before 2008, then a rapid fall after 2008 when global demands declined [ 23]. Likewise, natural gas prices have fluctuated greatly since 2000 [ 25].

Using more renewable energy can lower the prices of and demand for natural gas and coal by increasing competition and diversifying our energy supplies. And an increased reliance on renewable energy can help protect consumers when fossil fuel prices spike.

Reliability and resilience

Wind and solar are less prone to large-scale failure because they are distributed and modular. Distributed systems are spread out over a large geographical area, so a severe weather event in one location will not cut off power to an entire region. Modular systems are composed of numerous individual wind turbines or solar arrays. Even if some of the equipment in the system is damaged, the rest can typically continue to operate.

For example, Hurricane Sandy damaged fossil fuel-dominated electric generation and distribution systems in New York and New Jersey and left millions of people without power. In contrast, renewable energy projects in the Northeast weathered Hurricane Sandy with minimal damage or disruption [ 25].

Water scarcity is another risk for non-renewable power plants. Coal, nuclear, and many natural gas plants depend on having sufficient water for cooling, which means that severe droughts and heat waves can put electricity generation at risk. Wind and solar photovoltaic systems do not require water to generate electricity and can operate reliably in conditions that may otherwise require closing a fossil fuel-powered plant. (For more information, see How it Works: Water for Electricity.)

The risk of disruptive events will also increase in the future as droughts, heat waves, more intense storms, and increasingly severe wildfires become more frequent due to global warming-increasing the need for resilient, clean technologies.
Learn more: References:
[1] Environmental Protection Agency. 2017. Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2015.

[2] Energy Information Agency (EIA). 2017. How much of the U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are associated with electricity generation?

[3] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2011. IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation. Prepared by Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [O. Edenhofer, R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, K. Seyboth, P. Matschoss, S. Kadner, T. Zwickel, P. Eickemeier, G. Hansen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow (eds)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 1075 pp. (Chapter 9).

[4] Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). 2009. Clean Power Green Jobs.

[5] National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). 2012. Renewable Electricity Futures Study. Volume 1, pg. 210.

[6] Epstein, P.R.,J. J. Buonocore, K. Eckerle, M. Hendryx, B. M. Stout III, R. Heinberg, R. W. Clapp, B. May, N. L. Reinhart, M. M. Ahern, S. K. Doshi, and L. Glustrom. 2011. Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal in "Ecological Economics Reviews." Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1219: 73-98.

[7] Renewable Electricity Futures Study. 2012.

[8] NREL. 2016. Estimating Renewable Energy Economic Potential in the United States: Methodology and Initial Results.

[9] Renewable Electricity Futures Study. 2012.

IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation. Prepared by Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2011.

UCS. 2009. Climate 2030: A national blueprint for a clean energy economy.

[10] American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). 2017. AWEA U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report: Year Ending 2016. Washington, D.C.: American Wind Energy Association.

[11] Wiser, Ryan, and Mark Bolinger. 2017. 2016 Wind Technologies Market Report. U.S. Department of Energy.

[12] The Solar Foundation. 2017. National Solar Jobs Census 2016.

[13] Navigant Consulting. 2009. Job Creation Opportunities in Hydropower.

[14] Geothermal Energy Association. 2010. Green Jobs through Geothermal Energy.

[15] UCS. 2009. Clean Power Green Jobs.

[16] Environmental Protection Agency. 2010. Assessing the Multiple Benefits of Clean Energy: A Resource for States. Chapter 5.

[17] UCS. 2009. Clean Power Green Jobs.

[18] Deyette, J., and B. Freese. 2010. Burning coal, burning cash: Ranking the states that import the most coal. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists.

[20] SEIA. 2017. Solar Market Insight Report 2017 Q2.

[21] AWEA. 2017. AWEA U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report: Year Ending 2016. Washington, D.C.: American Wind Energy Association.

[22] UCS. 2009. Clean Power Green Jobs.

[23] UCS. 2011. A Risky Proposition: The financial hazards of new investments in coal plants.

[24] EIA. 2013. U.S. Natural Gas Wellhead Price.

[25] Unger, David J. 2012. Are renewables stormproof? Hurricane Sandy tests solar, wind. The Christian Science Monitor. November 19.

[26] Department of Energy. 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report

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Wind turbines and solar panels are an increasingly common sight. But why? What are the benefits of renewable energies-and how do they improve our health, environment, and economy? This page explores the many positive impacts of clean energy, including the benefits of wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biomass.

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Devan Davenport

Humans need to take extra precautions to prevent any further damage to the environment.

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Our Trajectory

Earth Will Continue to Warm and the Effects Will Be Profound

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones. Credit: left - Mike McMillan/USFS, center - Tomas Castelazo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, right - NASA.

Global climate change is not a future problem. Changes to Earth's climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming sooner.

Effects that scientists had long predicted would result from global climate change are now occurring, such as sea ice loss, accelerated sea level rise, and longer, more intense heat waves.

" The magnitude and rate of climate change and associated risks depend strongly on near-term mitigation and adaptation actions, and projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming."

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Some changes (such as droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall) are happening faster than scientists previously assessed. In fact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the United Nations body established to assess the science related to climate change - modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for many decades, mainly due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.

A Degree of Difference

So, the Earth's average temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the 20th century. What's the big deal?

Read more

The IPCC's Sixth Assessment report, published in 2021, found that human emissions of heat-trapping gases have already warmed the climate by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since 1850-1900. The global average temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C (about 3 degrees F) within the next few decades. These changes will affect all regions of Earth.

What's the difference between climate change and global warming?

"Global warming" refers to the long-term warming of the planet. "Climate change" encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet, including rising sea levels; shrinking mountain glaciers; accelerating ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic; and shifts in flower/plant blooming times.

detailed answer

The severity of effects caused by climate change will depend on the path of future human activities. More greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more climate extremes and widespread damaging effects across our planet. However, those future effects depend on the total amount of carbon dioxide we emit. So, if we can reduce emissions, we may avoid some of the worst effects.

" The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss the brief, rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future." ²

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Future Effects in the U.S.

U.S. Regional Effects

U.S. Regional Effects

Climate change is bringing different types of challenges to each region of the country. Some of the current and future impacts are summarized below. These findings are from the Third and Fourth National Climate Assessment Reports, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Is it too late to prevent climate change?

Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.

detailed answer

Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose increasing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Farmers can explore new crop options, but these adaptations are not cost- or risk-free. Moreover, adaptive capacity, which varies throughout the region, could be overwhelmed by a changing climate. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.

Northwest. Changes in the timing of peak flows in rivers and streams are reducing water supplies and worsening competing demands for water. Sea level rise, erosion, flooding, risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire incidence and severity, heat waves, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are causing widespread forest die-off.

Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region's economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.

Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also worsen a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

Southwest. Climate change has caused increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks. In turn, these changes have made wildfires more numerous and severe. The warming climate has also caused a decline in water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, and triggered heat-related health impacts in cities. In coastal areas, flooding and erosion are additional concerns.

References
References
Header image shows cracked mud stretches across sections of the Panamint Valley. Credit: NPS/Kurt Moses; A degree of concern thermometer image credit: Pixabay/geralt

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intergovernmental panel on climate change

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Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Long-term effects of global climate change in the United States.

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establishing commission on prosecutor conduct would force all involved in the case to look at each case with an eye on evidence and consequence

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Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from the Innocence Project:

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Matthew Lim

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The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects information on deaths involving drugs commonly associated with fatal overdose. NIDA analyzes NCHS data to create the figures and descriptions on this page. Final and provisional data are available to the public and can be accessed from an ad-hoc query system called CDC Wonder-Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research. The NCHS also provides 12-month-ending Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts by state and drug category.

Timely data related to unintentional and undetermined intent drug overdose deaths by participating jurisdiction is also available from the State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS). Similar data related to nonfatal drug overdoses are reported through CDC's Drug Overdose Surveillance and Epidemiology (DOSE) system.

See the latest from NIDA on drug overdose research.

See Frequently Asked Questions about drug overdose statistics.

Figure 1. National Drug-Involved Overdose Deaths-Number Among All Ages, by Gender, 1999-2021. More than 106,000 persons in the U.S. died from drug-involved overdose in 2021, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. drug overdose deaths involving select illicit or prescription drugs from 1999 to 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths by gender from 1999 to 2021 (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 2. National Drug-Involved Overdose Deaths by Specific Category-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. Overall, drug overdose deaths rose from 2019 to 2021 with more than 106,000 drug overdose deaths reported in 2021. Deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) continued to rise with 70,601 overdose deaths reported in 2021. Those involving stimulants, including cocaine or psychostimulants with abuse potential (primarily methamphetamine), also continued to increase with 32,537 overdose deaths in 2021 (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 3. National Overdose Deaths Involving Any Opioid-Number Among All Ages, by Gender, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving any opioid from 1999 to 2021. Any opioid includes prescription opioids (natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone), heroin, and synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl). Opioid-involved overdose deaths rose from 21,089 in 2010 to 47,600 in 2017 and remained steady through 2019. This was followed by a significant increase in 2020 with 68,630 reported deaths and again in 2021 with 80,411 reported overdose deaths. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths by gender from 1999 to 2021 (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 4. National Overdose Deaths Involving Prescription Opioids-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving commonly prescribed opioids (including natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone) from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving prescription opioids rose from 3,442 in 1999 to 17,029 in 2017. From 2017 to 2019, the number of deaths declined to 14,139. This was followed by a slight increase in 2020, with 16,416 reported deaths. In 2021, the number of reported deaths involving prescription opioids totaled 16,706. The bars are overlaid by a line showing the number of deaths involving prescription opioids in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl). A second line shows prescription opioids without any other opioid from 1999 to 2021 and demonstrates that commonly prescribed opioids are no longer driving the overdose crisis (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 5. National Overdose Deaths Involving Heroin, by Other Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving heroin from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving heroin rose from 1,960 in 1999 to 15,482 in 2017 before trending down to 13,165 deaths in 2020 and 9,173 deaths in 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving heroin in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any other opioid from 1999 to 2021 (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 6. National Overdose Deaths Involving Stimulants (cocaine and psychostimulants), by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving stimulants from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths rose from 12,122 in 2015 to 53,495 in 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving stimulants in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid. The number of deaths involving stimulants has increased steadily since 2014 regardless of opioid involvement (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 7. National Overdose Deaths Involving Psychostimulants With Abuse Potential (Primarily Methamphetamine), by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential rose from 547 in 1999 to 23,837 in 2020 and continued to increase to 32,537 deaths in 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving psychostimulants in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid. The number of deaths involving psychostimulants has increased steadily since 2014 regardless of opioid involvement (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 8. National Drug Overdose Deaths Involving Cocaine, by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving cocaine from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving cocaine rose steadily from 6,784 in 2015 to 15,883 in 2019. From 2019 to 2021, cocaine-involved deaths rose nearly 54% to 24,486 deaths. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving cocaine in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid. The number of deaths in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone has increased significantly since 2015 and is the main driver of cocaine-involved overdose deaths (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 9. National Drug Overdose Deaths Involving Benzodiazepines, by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines steadily increased from 1,135 in 1999 to 11,537 in 2017 and declined to 9,711 in 2019. Between 2019 and 2021, deaths rose again to 12,499. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving benzodiazepines in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid (Source: CDC WONDER).

Figure 10. National Drug Overdose Deaths Involving Antidepressants, by Opioid Involvement-Number Among All Ages, 1999-2021. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving antidepressants from 1999 to 2021. Drug overdose deaths involving antidepressants rose steadily from 1,749 in 1999 to 5,269 in 2017. Since then, deaths have slightly risen with 5,859 in 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines showing the number of deaths involving antidepressants in combination with synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) or without any opioid involvement (Source: CDC WONDER).

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Description of Figures

The figures above are bar charts showing the number of U.S. overdose deaths involving select illicit or prescription drugs from 1999 through 2021. The bars are overlaid by lines representing gender or concurrent opioid involvement. Please note the y-axis scale varies by bar chart and caution should be applied when comparing graphs side-by-side.

There were 106,699 drug-involved overdose deaths reported in the U.S. in 2021 (Figure 1); 69% of cases occurred among males (yellow line). Synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) were the main driver of drug overdose deaths with a nearly 7.5-fold increase from 2015 to 2021 (Figure 2).

Drug overdose deaths involving any opioid―prescription opioids (including natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone), other synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl), and heroin―continued to rise through 2021 with 80,411 deaths. More than 70% of deaths occurred among males (Figure 3). From 2020 to 2021, the number of deaths involving prescription opioids remained steady (Figure 4).

Overdose deaths involving heroin have trended down since 2016 with 9,173 deaths reported in 2021 (Figure 5). Nearly 75% of overdose deaths in 2021 involving heroin also involved synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl).

Drug overdose deaths involving stimulants, cocaine, or psychostimulants with abuse potential (primarily methamphetamine) have significantly increased since 2015 from 12,122 to 53,495 in 2021 (Figure 6).

Since 2015, the number of deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential (primarily methamphetamine) has risen significantly each year-with 32,537 deaths in 2021 (Figure 7). The number of deaths involving cocaine has also increased steadily since 2015 with 24,486 deaths reported in 2021 (Figure 8).

The final two charts show the number of overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines (Figure 8) or antidepressants (Figure 9). Benzodiazepines were involved in 12,499 deaths in 2021-steadily increasing since 2015. The proportion of deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) has increased significantly since 2015. Of the 8,791 deaths involving benzodiazepines in 2015, 20% also involved fentanyl. In 2021, this proportion increased to 70% of all deaths involving benzodiazepines. Antidepressant-involved deaths have also risen steadily, driven by fentanyl, with 5,859 deaths reported in 2021.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does NIDA collect and release the data displayed on this webpage?

No. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects and reports these data, which are available to the public and can be accessed from an ad-hoc query system called CDC Wonder-Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research. NIDA does not fund or assist in the collection of these data but does analyze NCHS data to create the figures and descriptions on this page.

Why are the statistics displayed not more recent? Where can I find timelier estimates of overdose death rates?

This webpage is regularly updated to display the most recent final drug overdose death data published annually by NCHS. NCHS systems receive and analyze data from death certificates, including cause-of-death information reported by state and local medical examiners and coroners. Because drug overdose deaths often require lengthy investigations, data are updated as new information is received.

For more recent provisional data, please see Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts from NCHS. Timely data related to unintentional and undetermined intent drug overdose deaths by participating jurisdiction is also available from the Similar data related to nonfatal drug overdoses are reported through CDC's Drug Overdose Surveillance and Epidemiology (DOSE) system.

Where can I find more information about the data displayed on this webpage?
For more information or to contact CDC, please visit the CDC's Drug Overdose Deaths webpage.

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Drug Overdose Death Rates | National Institute on Drug Abuse

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects information on deaths involving many commonly used drugs The CDC's reporting on deaths by overdose.

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Gus Schouviller

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Jessica Barone

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Editorial

Lee Carroll Brooker, a 75-year-old disabled veteran suffering from chronic pain, was arrested in July 2011 for growing three dozen marijuana plants for his own medicinal use behind his son's house in Dothan, Ala., where he lived. For this crime, Mr. Brooker was given a life sentence with no possibility of release.

Alabama law mandates that anyone with certain prior felony convictions be sentenced to life without parole for possessing more than 1 kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of marijuana, regardless of intent to sell. Mr. Brooker had been convicted of armed robberies in Florida two decades earlier, for which he served 10 years. The marijuana plants collected at his son's house - including unusable parts like vines and stalks - weighed 2.8 pounds.

At his sentencing, the trial judge told Mr. Brooker that if he "could sentence you to a term that is less than life without parole, I would." Last year, Roy Moore, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, called Mr. Brooker's sentence "excessive and unjustified," and said it revealed "grave flaws" in the state's sentencing laws, but the court still upheld the punishment.

On Friday, the United States Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Mr. Brooker's challenge to his sentence, which he argues violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments. The justices should take the case and overturn this sentence.

Image

Credit Danny Lyon/Magnum Photos

Life without parole, second only to the death penalty in severity, should never be a mandatory sentence for any crime, much less for simple possession of marijuana, which is not even a crime in many parts of the country. If this punishment is ever meted out, it should be by a judge who has carefully weighed the individual circumstances of a case.

Besides Alabama, only South Dakota, Louisiana and Mississippi have such laws; in Mississippi, possession of barely one ounce of marijuana is enough to trigger a mandatory sentence of life without parole for someone with prior convictions for certain felonies. Almost everywhere else, public attitudes and policy toward drugs in general, and marijuana in particular, have changed significantly. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have legalized medicalmarijuana, and four states, along with D.C., have fully legalized its possession for recreational use. In most states, the maximum sentence for possessing less than three pounds of marijuana is at most five years.

In other words, Mr. Brooker's punishment for marijuana possession is the definition of cruel and unusual. He received a punishment typically reserved for the most violent crimes, like murder, rape and terrorism, even though he poses no threat to society. The trial court even allowed him to remain free while he awaited his sentencing.

In 1991, the Supreme Court upheld a state law that mandated life without parole for possession of less than one and a half pounds of cocaine. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who concurred in that opinion, has since spoken out on the scourge of mandatory minimum sentences, which he said are often "unwise and unjust," and represent a "misguided" transfer of power from judges to prosecutors.

The court has already banned mandatory death sentences and mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, both on the grounds that the Eighth Amendment must adapt to the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." By that standard, and given rapidly evolving public opinion on marijuana, no one should be sent to prison forever for possessing a small amount of marijuana for medical or personal use.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Outrageous Sentences for Marijuana. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Opinion | Outrageous Sentences for Marijuana

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Editorial Lee Carroll Brooker, a 75-year-old disabled veteran suffering from chronic pain, was arrested in July 2011 for growing three dozen marijuana plants for his own medicinal use behind his son's house in Dothan, Ala., where he lived. For this crime, Mr. Brooker was given a life sentence with no possibility of release.

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Instead of being winner-take-all, its electors are chosen based off the % of people who vote for a  party

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Olivia Allan

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New Jobs Shows Record Unemployment for Hispanics, Women

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New Jobs Shows Record Unemployment for Hispanics, Women

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Eliza Radoll

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New Jobs Report Shows Record Unemployment Lows for Hispanics, Women

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It's time to celebrate: we have the lowest unemployment rate in 49 years, and wages continue to rise-especially for lower-wage workers. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor statistics reported that in April, the economy created a whopping 263,000 jobs, and the U-3 unemployment rate-the one commonly cited-fell from 3.8% to 3.6%.

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Parental Involvement in Minors' Abortions

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Parental Involvement in Minors' Abortions

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Jackie Taube

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Parental Involvement in Minors' Abortions

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The majority of states require parental involvement in a minor's decision to have an abortion. Most of these states require the consent or notification of only one parent, usually 24 or 48 hours before the procedure, but a handful of states require the involvement of both parents.

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Daniel Li

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A comprehensive study by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows that the U.S. can generate most of its electricity from renewable energy by 2050.

The Renewable Electricity Futures Study found that an 80 percent renewables future is feasible with currently available technologies, including wind turbines, solar photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, biopower, geothermal, and hydropower.

The study also demonstrates that a high renewables scenario can meet electricity demand across the country every hour of every day, year-round.

Variable resources such as wind and solar power can provide up to about half of U.S. electricity, with the remaining 30 percent from other renewable sources.

Increasing renewables to supply 80 percent of U.S. electricity does not, however, limit energy choices to one specific pathway. Rather, the NREL study shows that a range of renewable energy scenarios provide the nation with multiple pathways to reach this goal.

Ramping up renewable energy provides significant benefits...

Renewable energy provides substantial benefits for our climate, our health, and our economy. It dramatically reduces global warming emissions, improves public health, and provides jobs and other economic benefits. And since most renewables don't require water for cooling, they dramatically reduce the water requirements for power production compared to fossil-fueled power plants.

In an 80 percent renewables future, carbon emissions from the power sector would be reduced by 80 percent, and water use would be reduced by 50 percent.

...but we need the right policies to make it happen

The NREL study makes it clear that the 80 percent renewables future is technically feasible and affordable, but can only be achieved with the right policies and measures in place.

We already have the tools to start significantly ramping up renewable energy today. But we must also work to improve the electricity grid with increased transmission infrastructure to integrate a high amount of renewable generation, and incorporate more advanced grid planning to maintain reliability.

Ultimately, the U.S. needs a long-term clean energy policy that create a long-term market for renewable energy, encourages and supports the integration of renewable energy, puts a price on carbon emissions, and increases funding for research and development.

More about the Renewable Electricity Futures Study

The Renewable Electricity Futures Study is arguably the most comprehensive analysis of a high renewable electricity future to date.

The study was assessed by 140 peer reviewers, used state-of-the-art modeling to achieve the results, and includes detailed assessments of costs, challenges, and opportunities for each renewable energy technology. It serves as an accurate, realistic portrayal of what can be achieved in the coming decades.

Since the study was performed at a very fine geographic and time scale (looking at 134 regions across the U.S. on an hourly basis) the results are robust and closely detail how renewable energy sources and potential vary by region.

Some parts of the country have substantial wind resources. Other areas have more solar potential. Still others have extensive biomass or geothermal resources. To show these variations across the country, NREL created interactive visualizations that show differences for several metrics, including:

Photos: NREL

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Renewable Energy Can Provide 80 Percent of U.S. Electricity by 2050

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A comprehensive study by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows that the U.S. can generate most of its electricity from renewable energy by 2050. The Renewable Electricity Futures Study found that an 80 percent renewables future is feasible with currently available technologies, including wind turbines, solar photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, biopower, geothermal, and hydropower.

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Ricky Hsu

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It's pretty well accepted that everyone should save for retirement, but just how important is it? Absolutely essential. And never more so than today. That's because the prospect of a comfortable retirement based largely on Social Security benefits or monthly pension payments is less certain than at any time since the Great Depression.

Yes, we'll admit it: We can't predict the future. Instead, we rely on probabilities. And in our opinion there's a high probability that, in the future, we'll all be spending more of our own savings to cover retirement costs. Here are a few reasons why:

The U.S. government is deeply in debt.

U.S. economic growth prospects, in the short- to mid-term, look meager by historical standards.

A wave of retiring Baby Boomers means there will be fewer workers to foot the bill for each person receiving Social Security benefits.

Politicians typically shy away from tackling such controversial and costly challenges as Social Security reform. And the longer they delay, the more difficult the choices-and the solutions-will be to ensure adequate benefits for generations of future retirees.

Outlining this bleak reality isn't meant to scare you. It's meant to motivate you to take the steps to protect yourself if things turn out for the worst.

If typical Social Security benefits shrink by the time you reach retirement age-and traditional pension benefits become the stuff of urban legend (they already are)-your best hope is to create your own retirement nest egg. With time on your side, you can amass a sizable stash. The key is to start now.

If the future turns out brighter than we expect, the worst thing that could happen is you saved too much money for retirement. We think you'll agree that's a pretty great problem to have. We won't pity you when you're "forced" to upgrade to first class on that month-long trip to Hawaii or to move into a nicer retirement home.

Social Insecurity

When created in 1935 during the Great Depression, Social Security was designed as a "pay-as-you-go" system. That means that payroll taxes from current workers are used to pay the benefits for current retirees. It may have been necessary at the time, but the setup has an inherent flaw: What happens when the proportion of retirees grows far faster than the number of people working to support them?

The answer is the same as if a parent whose income is flat (or falls) every year kept having children. The parent can either earn more or go into debt; otherwise, there's less money to spend on each child. When it comes to Social Security, the way to "earn" more is to raise taxes. The other option is to cut benefits, a politically challenging task for the same reason Social Security is less secure: substantial growth in the number of retirees as the first wave of Baby Boomers turned 66 in 2012 and more swiftly followed. Older voters, who depend on Social Security benefits, tend to outnumber younger voters, who pay the taxes.

In the 1980s, a nearly bankrupt Social Security system prompted lawmakers to tweak the system to make it a bit less "pay-as-you-go." Since then, Social Security has typically operated with a surplus (more money was received in taxes than paid out in benefits). That surplus has been held in what's called the Social Security Trust Fund. Each year, the fund's trustees issue a report outlining the system's financial health. And each year, the report gets grimmer.

In 2011, Social Security paid out more in benefits that it received in revenues for the first time since the 1983 reforms. The government paid $736 billion in benefits to 56 million people (beneficiaries include retirees and those with disabilities and their families). Due to temporary cuts in payroll taxes as part of recession-related stimulus programs, the system took in $691 billion. The most recent (2015) figures are 60 million people and $886 billion in benefits, with an income of nearly $795 billion, according to the 2016 Trustees Report. Over time, the growing number of retirees will cause the imbalance to worsen, though interest payments on Social Security income mean that the Social Security Trust Funds are still not in deficit.

It's not something that can be fixed by returning payroll tax rates to pre-recession levels. The devil is in the demographics. In 2011, there were about three workers for every beneficiary. By 2021, the trustees project that the ratio of workers to beneficiaries will drop to 2.5. As the ratio of workers-to-retirees shrinks, the system will have to dip into its Trust Funds to pay benefits.

So what does that all mean for you? In a nutshell, your retirement income will likely take a hit, whether through lower benefits in retirement or higher taxes during your working years (leaving you with less money you could save).

Alternatively, the normal retirement age when you qualify for full benefits could be raised from its current age of 66 (67, if you were born in 1960 or later). This would means you'd have to work longer-or get by with less-if you retire early.

Is "Deficit" a Dirty Word?

When it comes to your retirement, the answer is likely "yes." While the impact of a government deficit depends on an extraordinarily complex set of factors, the basics are pretty easy to understand.

Like any individual, the U.S. government takes on debt any time it takes a loan to pay for expenses it can't cover with its current income. For the government, those loans take the form of bonds sold to individual investors, big institutions and other governments.

The government's ability to repay those debts, and take on new ones, depends on both its annual income and the interest rates demanded by its investors. In recent times, actions taken to soften the impact of the Great Recession, combined with the costs of the Bush tax cuts of 2003, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, caused the country's debt to skyrocket.

Healthy economies typically can handle deficits, because growth in the economy increases the government's ability to pay back the debt. Although the U.S. has experienced economic recovery in recent years, demographic and other challenges continue. There is also uncertainty about how taxes might change and impact revenue.

The major issue for retirees is how, over the long run, the government generates enough money to make the ballooning debt payments. One option is to raise taxes. The prospect of higher future taxes has particular significance for retirement account, since choosing the right account can depend largely on whether you expect to pay higher or lower income taxes in the future. A Roth makes the most sense if you expect your taxes to go up; a Traditional IRA makes sense when you expect them to be lower.

To Our Health

In the U.S., healthcare is big business, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the nation's total economic output. In fact, healthcare cost increases have outpaced economic growth in every decade since 1970s. In 2016, the bill totaled $10,345 for every man, woman and child in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

As a society, we may be a bit obsessed with health screenings and procedures, but that alone doesn't explain the rapid increase in costs. The factors are many, and we won't bore you with the details (that's a whole other book!). Suffice it to say that the evidence points to an ever-upward trend in costs. That's likely to mean higher out-of-pocket expenses for healthcare for everyone, especially retirees who tend to require more medical services. And the hit can be a double whammy: Not only will we spend more on personal healthcare, but we may also be paying higher taxes to fund government programs such as Medicare.

The size of the increases is impossible to predict. Maybe our politicians will join hands and tackle the healthcare problems once and for all. In the meantime, store the world's best "insurance"-your cash-in a retirement account.

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Who Needs a Retirement Account? | RothIRA.com

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It's pretty well accepted that everyone should save for retirement, but just how important is it? Absolutely essential. And never more so than today. That's because the prospect of a comfortable retirement based largely on Social Security benefits or monthly pension payments is less certain than at any time since the Great Depression.

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Kimberly Brown

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In response to apparently rare but highly publicized instances in which infants have been abandoned and sometimes left to die, every state, beginning with Texas in 1999, has enacted a provision intended to provide a safe and confidential means of relinquishing an unwanted infant.

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Jenna Nicholson

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Children under the age of 14 are protected in virtually every area of the law, except when it comes to the criminal justice system. Over the last 25 years, very young children have been prosecuted as adults in increasing numbers and subjected to very harsh adult sentences. Prosecuting underage children as adults is not only incompatible with the capabilities of young children, but also traumatizing, abusive, cruel, and unusual.

Young children are developmentally incapable of exercising the judgment, maturity, and knowledge necessary to competently defend themselves against criminal prosecution in adult court. The United States Supreme Court has developed clear guidelines for insuring that adults are competent before they are subjected to criminal prosecution, but courts have not developed rules that address the unique characteristics of children, leaving child defendants vulnerable and at great risk in adult court.

Thirteen states in the United States have no minimum age for trying children as adults. Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia have no minimum age for adult prosecution. Children as young as eight have been prosecuted as adults. Some states set the minimum age at 10, 12, or 13.

Consistent with what adolescent development experts have taught and with what teachers, parents, and child advocates appreciate, young children cannot be prosecuted fairly as adults. EJI believes that the adult prosecution of any child under age 14 for any crime should be banned.

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Children under the age of 14 are protected in virtually every area of the law, except when it comes to the criminal justice system. Over the last 25 years, very young children have been prosecuted as adults in increasing numbers and subjected to very harsh adult sentences.

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Checks on the Powers of State and Local Judges

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Checks on the Powers of State and Local Judges

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Justine Jonathan

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naya

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The National Debt Resolution and Spending Reform

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The National Debt Resolution and Spending Reform

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Isaac Putla

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Dawn Nguyen

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A History of Racial Injustice Daily Calendar

Learn more about our nation's history of racial injustice by reading our online calendar, which features a different historical event each day.

Visit calendar website

Visit EJI's Legacy Sites in Montgomery

Support

EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the U.S., challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. We've earned a perfect score from Charity Navigator.

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EJI works to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial inequality.

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Alyssa Cassano

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Same-day voter registration is a valuable elections policy offering a range of benefits for voters and states, including encouraging increased voter turnout. This policy allows any citizen qualified to vote to visit their poll site, early voting location, or Board of Elections office; register to vote; and vote on the same day.

Currently, this is only offered in fifteen states and the District of Columbia. Washington has passed it and will implement it in 2019. Two more, Maryland and North Carolina, allow for this practice during portions of the early voting period but not on Election Day. In addition, Utah has tested a pilot program for same-day registration and Rhode Island allows voters to cast votes only for President and Vice President, albeit only at the Board of Canvassers office.
How it Works
To ensure that those who show up to their poll place and are not registered are eligible to vote, each state requires multiple documents to actually cast a vote.

First, citizens must showcase proof of residency. All states will a driver's license or ID card. Some states allow other documents, including a paycheck or utility bill, to verify their residency. An even smaller minority of states will accept validation from a currently registered voter to suffice.

In addition, the voter must their identity with some form of documentation. Some states require a photo ID, while others accept IDs without a photo.

Finally, specific states may have other security measures to validate the votes cast by those who register on election day as legitimate.

Same-day registration is associated with , if any, additional administrative costs for states. Same-day registration is credited with the use of costly provisional ballots, which are often rejected, since the policy allows voters to self-correct voter rolls.
Benefits
Benefits of same-day registration policies are numerous, both for the state and for the voter.

The first is an undisputed in voter turnout for states that offer it versus states that don't. The former averaged a over 10 percentage points higher than the latter in the 2012 election. In the same year, four of the top five states for voter turnout were those that offered same-day registration. also suggests that same-day registration can increase youth voter turnout in presidential elections by almost 15%.

Same-day registration accounts for the increased interest that occurs in the final weeks of a campaign. Registration deadlines often fall a month or more before the election, restricting ballot access for those who become interested in voting closer to Election Day, along with others such as those who have changed their address close to Election Day.

Finally, this practice allows for self-correction of incomplete voter rolls due to voters moving or bureaucratic errors in traditional registration processing. In 2012, The Pew Center on the States that approximately 24 million voter registrations were no longer valid or significantly inaccurate. Same-day registration allows voters to update their registration and remain eligible to vote.
Take Action
The above benefits, combined with security measures to maintain election integrity, demonstrate the strength of same-day registration. It is unfortunate that only fifteen states have any same-day registration in place. We must continue to advocate for this policy to be adopted nationwide. Here are some steps you can take to help make same-day voter registration the standard nationwide:

Contact your representatives and tell them you want same-day voter registration available both in your state and nationwide

Talk with your family and friends about the benefits of same-day registration and encourage them to advocate their representatives as well

Engage in related advocacy with The Franchise Project

Sources

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Same-day voter registration is a valuable elections policy offering a range of benefits for voters and states, including encouraging increased voter turnout. This policy allows any citizen qualified to vote to visit their poll site, early voting location, or Board of Elections office; register to vote; and vote on the same day.

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on jah?

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Lobbying Reform

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Lobbying provides lawmakers with valuable knowledge of societal problems and points the way to potential solutions. However, when the lobbying profession becomes too closely tied to money, it can lead to corruption. Meaningful lobbying reform should protect the right of all persons to lobby but attempt to break the potentially corrupting nexus between lobbyists, money and lawmakers.

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Campaign Finance Reform

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[On Washington governor and U.S. presidential candidate Jay Inslee's recently released climate plan] It is not clear to me that supply chains could meet the need for all new light- and medium-duty vehicles and buses, along with all new buildings, to be zero-emission by 2030. [Yet], no other candidate is devoting this much attention to the climate issue.

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Campaign Finance Reform: Are There Smarter Ways to Fix the System?

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On Washington governor and U.S. presidential candidate Jay Inslee's recently released climate plan] It is not clear to me that supply chains could meet the need for all new light- and medium-duty vehicles and buses, along with all new buildings, to be zero-emission by 2030.

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Election Day = National Holiday

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Election Day should be a national holiday so that everyone has the opportunity to vote.

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Same Day Registration

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Felon Disenfranchisement Restoration

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A patchwork of state felony disfranchisement laws, varying in severity from state to state, prevent approximately 5.85 million Americans with felony (and in several states misdemeanor) convictions from voting. Confusion about and misapplication of these laws de facto disenfranchise countless other Americans.

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A patchwork of state felony disfranchisement laws, varying in severity from state to state, prevent approximately 5.85 million Americans with felony (and in several states misdemeanor) convictions from voting. Confusion about and misapplication of these laws de facto disenfranchise countless other Americans.

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FairVote supports cities lowering the voting age to 16 in their local elections. Empirical evidence suggests that the earlier in life a voter casts their first ballot, the more likely they are to develop voting as a habit. While one's first reaction might be to question the ability of young voters to cast a meaningful vote, research shows that 16- and 17-year-olds are as informed and engaged in political issues as older voters. It is time that they are empowered to put that knowledge to good use at the polls, and make voting a habit in their formative years. These young citizens are old enough to drive, work without restrictions on their hours, and pay taxes--they should also have a voice in their local government.

FairVote has served as a thought leader and catalyst for lowering the voting age to 16 in cities, playing a critical role at the local level in Takoma Park ( MD), which became the first U.S. city to lower the voting age in 2013, and later Hyattsville (MD), which followed in 2015. We provide resources and advice to local reformers through resources here and at our project. Advocacy leaders as of early 2018 include Promote Our Vote Generation Citizen and the National Youth Rights Association.

Why should we lower the voting age to 16?

At first glance, many assume that 16-year-olds are unable to make mature and informed decisions about voting, that they will not turn out to vote, or that they will just vote the way their parents tell them to. However, research indicates that all three of those assumptions are untrue and are not a reason to keep local governments from extending voting rights to 16-year-olds.

Reasons to lower the voting age include the following:

Extending voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds is consistent with the fact that turning 16 has special significance in our culture. At age 16, citizens can drive, pay taxes, and for the first time work without any restriction on hours. It's also a matter of fairness: when unable to vote until turning 18, some citizens won't have a chance to vote for their mayor until they are almost 22. Long-time backers of a lower voting age, like the National Youth Rights Association , make this fairness argument as well.

This change has worked in practice. Two Maryland cities have successfully extended municipal voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds. Several nations, including Austria, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, and the United Kingdom have extended voting rights to 16-year-olds for national, regional, or local elections. Additionally, more than 15 states already allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries to nominate candidates for president, Congress, and governor.

indicates that there is a "trickle up" effect on civic participation. When 16- and 17-year-olds engage in civics, conversations about politics and local issues are brought to the dinner table. Parents and family members are engaged in civic life through the 16- and 17-year-olds in their household, with a positive impact on voter turnout for people of all ages.

A detailed study of voters' ages and habits in Denmark found that 18-year-olds were far more likely to cast their "first vote" than 19-year-olds, and that every month of extra age in those years resulted in a decline in "first vote" turnout. Allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections will enable them to vote before leaving home and high school, and establish a lifelong habit of voting. Evidence from Austria confirms that extending voting rights to people after they turn 16 promotes higher turnout for first-time voters and over time. Austria's experience also shows that 16- and 17-year-olds are ready to contribute sound decision making and quality participation in democracy.

FairVote played a vital role in Takoma Park, MD's extending municipal voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds in 2013. The results in Takoma Park have been incredibly positive, affirming the growing body of research indicating several benefits of lowering the voting age. In 2013, Takoma Park 16- and 17-year-olds voted at twice the rate of voters 18 and older. Residents also support the measure: In an exit poll of an April 2014 Takoma Park special election, 72% of participants supported keeping voting rights for 16- and 17-year-olds in city elections.

Hyattsville, MD, with FairVote's support, followed Takoma Park's lead and adopted 16- and 17-year-old voting in January of 2015.

Research and Resources

Our coverage of Hyattsville's decision to lower the voting age at the blog.

A Scottish study from 2014 finds that 16- and 17-year-old voters are just as political as older counterparts, and that there is no strong association with the voting intentions of their parents.

An Austrian study from 2012 finds that the quality of 16- and 17-year-old citizens' choices were the same as older voters'.

A Rutgers study finds that 16- and 17-year-olds are both neurologically and socially mature enough to vote responsibly.

This piece by Democratic Audit UK argues that while lowering the voting age is not a panacea for youth engagement, it is essential for democracy.

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Lower the Voting Age for Local Elections

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FairVote supports cities lowering the voting age to 16 in their local elections. Empirical evidence suggests that the earlier in life a voter casts their first ballot, the more likely they are to develop voting as a habit.

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Automatic Voter Registration

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Automatic Voter Registration | Brennan Center for Justice

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Eight states and the District of Columbia have already approved automatic voter registration, and 32 states have introduced automatic registration proposals this year.

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Term Limits: Congress

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U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779

The year was 1995, and the case was U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton. With assistance from USTL, the citizens of 23 states had just passed laws putting term limits on their members of Congress. That meant just under half of all congressmen were term-limited, and Congress would soon be forced to propose a term limits amendment applying to everyone.

But it was not to be. A self-interested politician in Arkansas and his donors made a court challenge to void that state's law. Others followed. After the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled against us, we took it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS).

SCOTUS opined that since the Constitution sets forth the criteria that determines the requirements for Senators and Congressional Representatives, only the Constitution can limit the terms of Congress members.

The Court decided, in a 5-4 split decision, that citizens are not allowed to term limit their own members of Congress using state laws. They threw out 23 states' term limits laws in one day. Justice Scalia disagreed, ruling for term limits as part of the dissenting minority.

This was without doubt a low point for term limits. The Court seemed to have shut down every realistic avenue to fight careerism in Washington.

But hidden in their decision was a silver lining: "State imposition of term limits for Congressional service would effect such a fundamental change in the constitutional framework that it must come through a constitutional amendment properly passed under the procedures set forth in Article V."

Did you catch that? While they had closed the door to term-limiting Congress with state laws, they had opened another by saying it can be done through amendment to the Constitution. That's the strategy USTL is pursuing today.

A Term Limits Amendment Proposal Convention

The Term Limits Convention uses "the procedures set forth in Article V" to achieve congressional term limits. The Convention is not a state law like those the Court struck down - it is a constitutional call-to-action that triggers automatically when 34 state legislatures have demanded it. And, the states don't need the permission of Congress to propose a Constitutional amendment.

The Founders recognized that the Constitution may have flaws and would have to adapt as the country grew. As a matter of fact, George Mason refused to sign off on the Constitution because it did not include a "declaration of rights." The first 10 amendments, now known as the "Bill of Rights," as well as the 27 amendments that followed, were all proposed by Congress through Article V. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton wrote about the beauty of Article V, stating it made it difficult but not too difficult, to propose corrections to the Constitution. Madison, Hamilton, and Mason felt strongly that both the federal government and the state legislatures should have equal power to propose amendments, therefore, the "conventions of states" option was important for them to include.

Article V of the U.S. Constitution

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Amendments require 2 steps: Proposal and Ratification

PROPOSAL PROCESS: Either

2/3 of both houses of Congress or

2/3 of the State Legislatures (34 states). The state legislatures must apply for a convention of states to finalize the language in preparation for the next step.

RATIFICATION PROCESS: Once approved, 3/4 of the states (38 states) must ratify the change. This can be done either through

3/4 state legislatures or

3/4 state ratifying conventions

The Current Stage of the Process

Term limits are a non-partisan issue supported by a whopping 82% of the population. There have been strides in both Congress and by the states towards imposing term limits on Congress.

Article V: Proposal by Congress

We believe that the rise of political careerism in modern Washington is a drastic departure from what the founders intended of our federal governing bodies. To effectively 'drain the swamp,' we believe it is past time to enact term limits for Congress. ~ Florida Governor and Former Congressman Ron Desantis

Rep. Rooney, FL U.S. House Member ( H.J.Res.20), and Senator Cruz, TX U.S. Senator ( S.J.Res.1), have co-sponsored a joint resolution limiting terms in office for both members of the House and the Senate. It must garner the support of 3/4 of both houses by December 2020.

Article V: Proposal by State Convention

More than 500 applications have been made by the states asking for an Article V Convention on various topics. To date, a proposal convention of states has never been called. However, 3/4s of the states in convention did ratify the repeal of the prohibition amendment in 1933. Currently, the Article V movement with the most traction is the Balanced Budget Amendment which needs only seven more states in order for Congress to call an Article V Convention. Twelve states have passed Article V convention applications for a limited government that includes imposition of term limits on Congress.

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Term Limits Amendment - U.S. Term Limits

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U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 The year was 1995, and the case was U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton. With assistance from USTL, the citizens of 23 states had just passed laws putting term limits on their members of Congress.

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Limited Terms: SCOTUS

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When the founders were drafting the Constitution, a primary goal was to shield the judiciary from the political pressures of the day. English monarchs throughout the 18th century were firing judges without cause, and the founders were hoping to guarantee some level of judicial independence from the executive.

Today's Supreme Court is not only highly political, it's also polarized along partisan lines in a way that mirrors other broken political institutions. Our freedoms sit on a razor's edge, with the percentage of 5-4 rulings under Chief Justice Roberts near an all-time high. A single justice's vote holds the key on health care, voting, civil rights and religious freedom.

With lifetime appointments, justices are free to push their personal, ideological agendas for decades with almost no accountability. So how can we move the court away from partisanship and closer to the founders' intent?

One compelling answer is 18-year term limits, which would solve critical problems:

Supreme Court justices now serve on average longer on average than at any point in American history (28 years) and are gaming their retirements. Life tenure gives justices the perverse incentive to stay on the court until a President with whom they tend to agree sits in the Oval Office, meaning some hold onto their seats past their intellectual primes and wait until the "right" person is elected to the White House to retire.

Life tenure has turned nominations into a political circus. It's no longer a priority to find the best candidate for the job who will serve with integrity and who has broad life experience. Instead, the party in charge scrambles to find the youngest, often most ideological nominee (who, at the same time, knows the right things to say at a confirmation hearing) in order to control the seat for decades to come.

A single, standard 18-year term at the high court would restore limits to the most powerful, least accountable branch of American government. Each new justice would be added every other year, and since 9 (justices) x 2 (years) = 18, it'd take 18 years to reach the end of the cycle, hence 18-year terms. Appointments would become predictable exercises, not embarrassing partisan spectacles.

Concerned with constitutionality? Read below (or this or this or this)

First, the Constitution does not expressly grant "life tenure" to Supreme Court justices. Rather, this idea has been derived from the language that judges and justices " shall hold their offices during good behaviour."

Our proposal does not contravene this requirements as it would keep justices on the federal bench as senior justices after serving 18 years on SCOTUS. Senior justices could sit on lower federal courts, as many retired justices have done, or fill in if there's an unexpected vacancy.

Some may still feel that pushing justices into senior status would be too similar to forcing them into retirement. But "senior status" in the judiciary is a congressional creation, and one that has been almost universally accepted as a constitutionally valid interpretation of Article III.

We do take seriously the charge that this could be seen as a diminution of the position, and so our proposal would not impact current justices - that is, only future justices would be subject to this new regulation on service.
Read our term limits proposal here.

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New (9/29/20): the first-ever Supreme Court Term Limits Act, backed by FTC*** When the founders were drafting the Constitution, a primary goal was to shield the judiciary from the political pressures of the day. English monarchs throughout the 18th century were firing judges without cause, and the founders were hoping to guarantee some level of ...

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Blockchain Voting System

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Denver becomes the latest jurisdiction to leverage mobile voting in an election for deployed active duty military and eligible overseas voters

DENVER, March 7, 2019 -- Tusk Philanthropies (TP) announced today that Denver is the latest jurisdiction to implement a mobile voting pilot in its May municipal election. The pilot will offer blockchain-based mobile voting to active-duty military, their eligible dependents and overseas voters using their smartphones during the Denver municipal elections.

This marks the second jurisdiction nationwide to partner with Tusk Philanthropies on their national efforts to expand mobile voting. In 2018, Tusk Philanthropies partnered with West Virginia to launch a secure military mobile voting application for the May and November Primary and General elections, marking the first time a state has offered blockchain-based mobile voting in a federal election.

"The one thing everyone agrees on is that our democracy is broken, and politicians make policy decisions based on political inputs and usually nothing else," said Bradley Tusk, founder and CEO of Tusk Philanthropies. "With turnout this low in national elections, of course we're stuck with rampant polarization and dysfunction. That only changes if turnout soars. That only happens if we move into the 21st century and let people use the tool already in their pockets: their phone. Blockchain makes it secure and feasible. And the Denver Elections Division deserves a tremendous amount of credit for being one of the first to implement an innovative and convenient solution to fix the underlying issues in our government."

The pilot is a collaboration between the City and County of Denver, Voatz, Tusk Philanthropies, and the National Cybersecurity Center. Eligible voters will be able to participate in the upcoming election by opting in to vote electronically on their smartphones. Voters will fill out an absentee ballot request, complete their authentication with the Voatz application, and submit their ballot for the election starting on March 23 through 7:00pm on Election Day, May 7. By voting using their secure mobile phones, individuals can complete the necessary paperwork from their device and forgo the time-consuming process of printing and scanning their paperwork. Overseas voters will have the opportunity to verify their ballot was both received and recorded correctly for the election.

Voatz, a mobile elections platform powered by military-grade technology making it safe and easy to vote from anywhere, is the technical provider designing the system. Last year in West Virginia, Voatz launched the first blockchain-based mobile voting solution involved in a federal election. To date, Voatz has conducted more than 30 successful pilots that range from state party conventions to student government elections. In its largest election, more than 15,000 votes were cast.

"With this pilot program, Denver is leading the effort to make voting more convenient, accessible and secure for deployed military personnel and overseas US citizens," said Nimit Sawhney, CEO and co-founder of Voatz. "The latest developments in smartphone hardware, encryption and blockchain technology make mobile voting a reality. This is a significant stepping stone that I hope many other states and cities will follow."

"The Denver Elections Division is recognized nationally and internationally for putting voters first and for using technology to make voting easier and more transparent. We are widely known for being innovators in the world of election administration so participating in this pilot program fits perfectly into our mission," said Jocelyn Bucaro, deputy director of Elections at Denver Clerk and Recorder. "We believe this technology has the potential to make voting easier and more secure not only for our active duty military and overseas citizens, but also for voters with disabilities, who could potentially vote independently and privately using their phones' assistive technology."

Proof of Concept
"The National Cybersecurity Center (NCC) in its efforts to protect the integrity of election systems is excited to partner with the City/County of Denver, Voatz and Tusk Philanthropies to advance opportunities in secure mobile voting, said Vance Brown, CEO of National Cybersecurity Center. "This public/private partnership showcases how promoting innovative technologies, such as blockchain-based mobile voting, protects against cyber-attacks that negatively impact our world. The application of blockchain in our election system provides for secure, auditable, transparent and accurate counting of ballots and the increased integrity of our election system. Through the testing and continued adoption of these emerging technologies, people in the United States of America can one day regularly vote using a mobile device and a blockchain application that is more secure and less costly than our current approaches."

The pilot will offer blockchain-based mobile voting to active-duty military and their eligible dependents, and overseas voters registered for the Denver municipal elections in May and June 2019. The military community currently relies on absentee ballots and are allowed to vote in their home state regardless of where they are deployed (even if deployed domestically). This mobile-voting option will be offered in addition to the absentee ballot option. In addition to having the option to cast their ballot via the blockchain-based mobile application, eligible military voters in Denver can choose to cast their vote through the standard electronic remote absentee ballot system. The electronic remote absentee ballot system currently offered to overseas military voters doesn't ensure anonymity and relies on email or postal mail for return methods.

Voatz is the technical provider designing the system. They are experienced in the field of voting technology and have run a number of smaller elections using an app for phones and tablets. With this pilot, they will have launched the second blockchain-based mobile voting solution involved in a federal election. The technology has additionally been deployed in State party caucuses, conventions, union votes, and university elections.

This pilot conforms with the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) and the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, two federal laws enacted to protect the rights of United States citizens to vote in federal elections while they are serving in the uniformed services or residing overseas.

To Be Eligible to Vote Using This Solution, An Individual Must Be: 1. Deployed and overseas military personnel and their families, other qualified overseas voters (as applicable under the UOCAVA), and 2. Eligible to vote in Denver county.

Oversight
Military Mobile Voting Powered by Blockchain Technology: Denver's secure military mobile voting is powered by blockchain technology. Blockchain-based mobile voting solutions can help meet many of the most urgent challenges in election administration by adding security, transparency, and auditabiliy to the system. Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that empowers anyone with an internet connection to transfer anything of value - anywhere, anytime, with unmatched security and integrity. Because blockchain is a distributed ledger of transactions, military mobile votes become immutable and tamper-proof once recorded. Benefits of blockchain-based voting solutions include: - Secure and accurate - Elimination of human error - Vote anonymity - Faster results - Increased trust in institutions - Audit trails - Transparency

The coalition approach ensures inclusivity and diverse perspectives. Partners in the effort combine expertise in election systems, blockchain, research, communications and managing the deployment of successful proofs of concept. The initiative is strictly nonpartisan and is open to engagement with civic innovators, technologists, academics, and philanthropic leaders.

We believe that expanding secure registration and voting options in the United States will increase participation in elections and strengthen democracy. Blockchain-based mobile voting is auditable, transparent, secure and accurate. Mobile voting helps reduce human error, provides faster results, and can build trust in institutions. Increasing participation and accessibility in elections can increase civic engagement and voter turnout.

About National Cybersecurity Center

The National Cybersecurity Center (NCC) is a non-profit Organization that is Community Built and Driven, serving cybersecurity influencers from education, government, military and industry. The NCC provides cybersecurity thought leadership, events, training and certification, workforce development and collaboration initiatives. Its aim is to promote awareness of cyber issues and to help shape public policy, foster job creation and entrepreneurship, and help develop the cyber workforce. For more information, visit https://cyber-center.org.

About Denver Elections Division

The Denver Elections Division's mission is to conduct Denver's elections in a fair, accurate, accessible, secure transparent and efficient manner; to educate and encourage the public to participate in voting process; and to maintain accurate voter registration and election records. Denver Elections has won multiple national and international awards for use of technology in elections administration including awards for the first-in-the-nation ballot tracking system BallotTRACE which allows voters to track the status of their mail ballot the same way they track a package and eSign, which lets candidates and issue campaigns gather petitions on tablets instead of paper.

About Voatz

Voatz is an award-winning mobile elections platform backed by military-grade security and cutting-edge technology (including biometrics and a blockchain-based infrastructure). Voatz enables voting via compatible smartphones and tablets to increase accessibility and security in elections. Since 2016, Voatz has run 36 elections with towns, cities, states, both major state political parties, colleges and universities, and unions. Most recently, Voatz ran the first mobile blockchain vote in US Federal Election history in partnership with the State of West Virginia to empower deployed military personnel and overseas citizens to vote in the 2018 Primary Elections (2 counties) and the 2018 Midterm Elections (24 counties). Learn more at https://voatz.com.

About Tusk Philanthropies

Tusk Philanthropies was created by Bradley Tusk, Founder and CEO of Tusk Holdings & Tusk Ventures, for the purpose of working on reducing hunger throughout the United States by providing greater access to programs like school breakfast and to dramatically increase voter turnout and participation in U.S. elections through mobile voting, beginning with qualified military service members. Mobile voting is a non-partisan initiative designed to not favor any one candidate or party but to expand voting options to increase participation in our electoral process. None of the Tusk entities has a financial interest in Voatz or any other voting technology company.

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Mobile Voting is coming to Denver Municipal Elections - Mobile Voting Project

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Denver becomes the latest jurisdiction to leverage mobile voting in an election for deployed active duty military and eligible overseas voters DENVER, March 7, 2019 -- Tusk Philanthropies (TP) announced today that Denver is the latest jurisdiction to implement a mobile voting pilot in its May municipal election.

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Wrongful Conviction Reform

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8 Ways People With Disabilities Can Be Vulnerable to Wrongful Conviction

For Disability Pride Month, we're taking a look at how people with disabilities can face unique challenges that hinder their ability to effectively participate in the criminal legal system.

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We work to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone.

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Mandatory Prison Reform

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Sentencing Reform | FAMM

To learn about sentencing in the states in which we're working please visit our states page. States Where We Are Working

"Let the punishment fit the crime." - W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado

Decades of evidence show that lengthy, mandatory sentences do not reduce crime, but impose high economic and social costs on taxpayers and families. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws also tend to create unwarranted disparities by treating similar offenders differently and different offenders the same. FAMM believes that judges should have the authority to consider all the relevant facts and circumstances of a crime and an individual before imposing a fair punishment.

New to federal sentencing? FAMM has created an easy to understand guide. Check out the link below, and read all about our federal sentencing reform work.

Read FAMM's Sentencing For Beginners

Quick Facts: Sentencing Reform

Since Congress created mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes in the 1980s, the federal prison population has grown from 24,000 prisoners to over 214,000 prisoners - the largest prison system in the country. (Federal Bureau of Prisons)

One in 31 adults in America is either behind bars, on parole, or on probation. (Pew Center on the States)

There is no parole in the federal criminal justice system - all federal prisoners are required to serve at least 85% of their sentences. (Pew Center on the States)

In 2015, 87% of all federal offenders received a sentence of imprisonment; only 10% received probation or home confinement. (US Sentencing Commission, 2015 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics)

In 2015, 95% of all federal drug offenders received prison sentences. (US Sentencing Commission, 2015 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics)

In 2015, 46% of all federal drug offenders were subject to a mandatory minimum sentence. (US Sentencing Commission, 2015 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics)

52% of (the 21,475) drug offenders in FY 2014 were convicted of an offense that carries a mandatory minimum penalty. (US Sentencing Commission Report to Congress: Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System)

Nearly half of all federal prisoners are serving prison sentences for drugs. (US Sentencing Commission, 2015 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics, Figure A)

In 2015, the average federal prison sentence for a drug offender was more than 1 1 years. (U.S. Dept. of Justice Special Report: 'Drug Offenders in Federal Prison.")

While longer sentences do have some deterrent effect, the majority of deterrence is derived from the first few years in prison. (Mastrobuoni, Giovanni and Rivers, David A., Criminal Discount Factors and Deterrence.)

Data shows that in the case of incarceration versus remaining in the community, there was a 7% increase in recidivism for those offenders who were in prison. Researchers also find an increased likelihood that lower-risk offenders will be more negatively affected by incarceration. (Gendreau, Paul and Goggin, Claire, The Effects of Prison Sentences on Recidivism.)

Research to date generally indicates that increases in the certainty of punishment, as opposed to the severity of punishment, are more likely to produce deterrent benefits. (Wright, Valerie, Deterrence in Criminal Justice Evaluating Certainty vs. Severity of Punishment.)

Among low-risk offenders, those who spent less time in prison were 4% less likely to recidivate than low-risk offenders who served longer sentences. (Lin Song and Roxanne Lieb, "Recidivism: The Effect of Incarceration and Length of Time Served," Olympia, WA: Washington State Institute of Public Policy.)

Since 1998, Congress has cut funding for state and local law enforcement by 76 percent while increasing the federal prison budget by 45 percent over this same time. (FAMM Foundation)

The federal prison system consumes over 25 percent of the entire Department of Justice budget. Prison costs are eating up money that could be spent on police and protecting the public from violent offenders. (Statement of Wisconsin Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner.)

State spending on corrections has grown 324% in the last 33 years. This is triple the rate spending on education has increased. (A Brief from the U.S. Department of Education, Policy and Program Studies Service.)

The average cost of keeping one inmate incarcerated in 2014 was $30,619.85 ($83.89 per day). (Office of the Federal Register)

Taxpayers spend over $50 billion annually for state prisons. (Pew Center on the States)

87% agreed that "Prisons are a government program, and just like any other government program they need to be put to the cost-benefit test to make sure taxpayers are getting the best bang for their buck." (Pew Center on the States)

Compared to the 1 out of 125 American children that had a parent behind bars 25 years ago, today, 1 out of every 28 American children have a parent behind bars. "Two-thirds of these children's parents were incarcerated for nonviolent offenses." (Pew: Collateral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility.")

7% of children - or 5 million children - in the United States have had a parent incarcerated at some point during their lifetime. This percentage varies by state, but in Kentucky, more than 1 in 10 (13%) of children have had a parent incarcerated in their lifetime. (Annie E. Casey Foundation)

A recent survey done by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that:

65% of families with a family member in prison or jail could not meet basic needs

And when fathers are incarcerated, family income can drop by an average of 22 percent.

77% of Americans support eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders. (Reason-Rupe Public Opinion Survey)

84% of Americans believe that some of the money that we are spending on locking up low-risk, non-violent inmates should be shifted to strengthening community corrections programs like probation and parole. (Pew Center on the States)

When asked about drug policy, 67% of Americans thought the government should focus more on providing treatment, while only 26% thought the government should focus more on prosecuting drug users (7% didn't know). (Pew Center on the States)

Voters think, on average, that about a fifth of prisoners could be released without posing a threat to public safety. (Pew Center on the States)

62% strongly favor sending fewer low-risk, non-violent offenders to prison in order to keep violent criminals in prison for their full sentence. (Pew Center on the States)

59% strongly favor sending fewer low-risk, non-violent offenders to prison and re-investing in alternatives to incarceration. (Pew Center on the States)

88% agreed that "We have too many low-risk, nonviolent offenders in prison. We need alternatives to incarceration that cost less and save our expensive prison space for violent and career criminals." (Pew Center on the States)

87% agreed that "Prisons are a government program, and just like any other government program they need to be put to the cost-benefit test to make sure taxpayers are getting the best bang for their buck." (Pew Center on the States)

Sentencing Reform at the Federal Level

Occasionally, FAMM will get involved in appeals which include legal challenges to sentencing laws, including mandatory minimums. We work with outside lawyers to prepare and file a "friend of the court" (amicus) brief, which the Supreme Court reads when deciding the case (and sometimes they even cite it in the opinion).
Learn more about appellate court cases and amicus briefs FAMM is involved in

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Sentencing Reform | FAMM To learn about sentencing in the states in which we're working please visit our states page. States Where We Are Working "Let the punishment fit the crime." - W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado Decades of evidence show that lengthy, mandatory sentences do not reduce crime, but impose high economic and social costs on taxpayers and families.

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Ranked Choice Voting

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Click on a topic to begin.
infogram_0_25f65869-33c3-485f-9ced-bf81f03ec37d Map for New RCV handout https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed.js?fgQ text/javascript
Using RCV now:

Basalt, Colorado: Adopted in 2002 and will be used when three or more candidates run for mayor.

Carbondale, Colorado: Adopted in 2002 for mayor when there are three or more candidates

Minneapolis, Minnesota: Adopted in 2006 and used since 2009, in elections for 22 city offices, including mayor and city council in single winner elections and some multi-winner park board seats

Santa Fe, New Mexico: Adopted in 2008 and used since March 2018 for mayor, city council, and municipal judge

Upcoming implementations:

Amherst, Massachusetts: Adopted charter in 2018 with ranked choice voting and passing implementation statute before projected first use in 2021.

Benton County, Oregon: Adopted by voters in 2016 for elected county offices including sheriff and county commissioner. It will be used in 2020.

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Adopted by the city council in 2018 for all municipal elections beginning in 2019.

St. Louis Park, Minnesota: Adopted in 2018 for municipal offices including mayor and city council. It will be used in 2019.

Memphis, Tennessee: Adopted by voters in 2008, and approved again by voters in 2018. It will be used in 2019.

Payson, Utah: A Local Options legislative bill was passed in 2018, and the city opted-in.

Vineyard, Utah: A Local Options legislative bill was passed in 2018, and the city opted-in.

Advisory or option for future uses:

Davis, California: adopted in 2006 as an advisory referendum for fair representation form of RCV and awaiting state law change.

Ferndale, Michigan: adopted by voters in 2004, awaiting implementation readiness.

Santa Clara County, California: approved in charter by voters as option in 1998.

Sarasota, Florida: adopted by voters in 2007, awaiting implementation readiness.

Utah: Several cities in 2018 acted to make RCV an option in 2019.

Vancouver, Washington: approved in charter by voters as option in 1999.

For overseas voters in runoffs

Arkansas: Adopted in 2005, first used 2006, and was extended to all local runoffs in 2007.

Alabama: By agreement with a federal court, used in special election for U.S. House, 2013; became law for all federal primary runoffs in 2015.

Louisiana: Adopted and used since the 1990s for state and federal general election runoffs; also includes out of state military voters.

Mississippi: Adopted in 2014 for use in federal runoffs.

South Carolina: Adopted and first used in 2006 for state and federal runoffs.

Springfield, Illinois: Adopted in 2007 and used since 2011.

RCV on Campus

Over 50 colleges and universities in the United States use ranked choice voting to elect some or all student government positions. That means that over 700,000 students across the country are empowered with more choice in electing student leaders.
Full list of colleges and universities using RCV for student government elections
Private Organizations and Corporations

Recommended by Robert's Rules of Order for organizational elections conducted by mail, ranked choice voting is used widely among private associations organizations. Probably its highest profile use by a private organization is in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who use RCV to nominate and select winners of the prestigious Academy Awards. Ranked choice voting in multi-winner elections is commonly used by British organizations as well.

Too many organizations use RCV for a comprehensive list. Here is a partial list of private organizations and corporations using RCV.

Public Elections Internationally

Ranked choice voting is used by every voter in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Malta, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, often with the multi-winer, proportional form of it ("single transferable vote"). RCV also is used in party elections and local elections throughout the English-speaking world, including national leaders of the major conservative parties in Canada and New Zealand and major liberal parties in Canada and United Kingdom. Examples of uses of RCV include: Australia (federal House of Representatives and nearly all state and local government elections and a multi-winner form of it for senate elections); Ireland (for president and multi-winner form for parliament and many local elections; Malta (multi-winner form for parliament; New Zealand (for mayor and city council in major cities such as Wellington, along with health board elections); Northern Ireland (multi-winner form for regional parliament and most local elections); Scotland (multi=winner form for all local government elections. In India, Nepal and Pakistan elected officials use the multi-winner from of RCV to select their national senates and in the case of India its president. Forms of RCV are also used to elect the mayor of London and president of Sri Lanka.
International election systems
Benefits of Ranked Choice Voting

Ranked choice voting promotes positive, inclusive and fair elections. These benefits are not merely theoretical. To see how they have improved democracy in recent elections, see:

Promotes Majority Support

Too often, candidates can and do win election to offices like Mayor and Governor despite being opposed by most voters. With ranked choice voting, if no candidate has more than half the vote in first-choices, candidates finishing last are eliminated round-by-round in an instant runoff until two candidates are left. The winning candidate will be the one with majority support when matched against the other. In a multi-winner election, ranked choice voting promotes majority rule because the majority of voters will always be able to elect a majority of seats, without fear that an entrenched minority has used gerrymandered districts to ensure they stay in office.

Discourages Negative Campaigning

In non-ranked choice voting elections, candidates benefit from "mud-slinging" by attacking an opponent's character instead of sharing their positive vision with voters. With ranked choice voting, candidates do best when they reach out positively to as many voters as possible, including those supporting their opponents. A comprehensive Rutgers University poll of voters in 7 cities with ranked choice voting found that voters report friendlier campaigns and that RCV had majority support in all of the cities using it.

Provides More Choice for Voters

Democracy is strongest when more voices are heard. Too often, to avoid "vote splitting" in which candidates can and do win with very little support (see "Promotes Majority Support" above), efforts are taken to limit the number of candidates who compete. This limits voters' choices. In some places, that means a low turnout primary election eliminates most of the candidates; in others it means restrictive ballot access laws keep out challengers; and in others it means that candidates are shamed into staying out the race. Ranked choice voting allows more than two candidates to compete without fear of splitting the vote.

Minimizes Strategic Voting

Voters should be able to vote for candidates they support, not just against candidates they oppose most. Yet in elections without ranked choice voting, voters may feel that they need to vote for the "lesser of two evils," because their favorite candidate is less likely to win. With ranked choice voting, you can honestly rank candidates in order of choice without having to worry about how others will vote and who is more or less likely to win.

Mitigates Impact of Money in Politics

Too often, candidates win by barraging opponents with a slew of expensive, negative ads, rather than building a positive, grassroots campaign for support. Candidates who have run and won in ranked choice voting elections have been successful because they built grassroots outreach networks. Those more positive and inclusive campaign tactics cost less than polarizing negative radio and television elections, helping to explain why candidates seem able to win ranked choice voting elections even when outspent.

Saves Money When Replacing Primaries or Runoffs

Many local offices are elected in two rounds of elections; either a primary winnowing the field to two followed by a general election, or a general election followed by a runoff if no candidate has a majority. In either case, the election that takes place outside of the context of the general Election Day often suffers from very weak and unrepresentative turnout, while raising issues of vote splitting in the first round and the possibility of disenfranchising overseas and military voters. Ranked choice voting can accomplish the benefits of a primary/runoff election structure with only one election, avoiding these issues while saving the jurisdiction the costs of running two elections. That's why ranked choice voting is often called "instant runoff voting" when used to elect mayors, governors, and other single-winner offices.

Promotes Reflective Representation

Compared to winner-take-all elections, ranked choice voting in multi-winner contests allows more diverse groups of voters to elect candidates of choice. This promotes diversity of political viewpoint as well as diversity of candidate background and demographics. Even in single-winner races, ranked choice voting can promote the representation of historically under-represented groups like racial and ethnic minorities and women. A report co-authored by FairVote and the New America Foundation found that racial minority populations prefer ranked choice voting and find it easy to use, and that ranked choice voting increased turnout by 2.7 times in San Francisco.

Problems RCV Can Help Solve

Avoiding Split Votes and Counter-Majoritarian Outcomes

Too often, candidates can and do win election to offices like Governor despite being opposed by most voters. That's because when more than two candidates run, a majority of votes may be split among the two or more losing candidates. For example, in Maine, nine of the 11 gubernatorial elections between 1994 and 2014 were won with less than 50% of votes.

With ranked choice voting for single-winner offices, if no candidate has a majority in first-choices, the candidates in last place will be eliminated one-by-one. If a voter's first choice is eliminated, their vote instantly goes to their second choice. That way, we can find out which of the top candidates has real majority support.

With ranked choice voting for multi-winner offices like city councils and state legislatures, a majority of voters will always have the power to elect a majority of seats. If a group big enough to elect two candidates votes overwhelmingly for one, that candidate's extra support will spill over to help their next choices. Similarly, a group big enough to elect one candidate will always be able to elect one candidate, even if they split their support among several, because the candidates in last place will be eliminated one-by-one until a candidate gets enough votes to win.

Eliminating Expensive and Unnecessary Primary or Runoff Elections

In some places without ranked choice voting, if no candidate has a majority vote, a second election is held in which only the two candidates with the most support in the first election run. Those candidates must campaign again - often in a very negative head-to-head race - and voters must return to the polls to vote again. If this runoff election occurs after Election Day, usually turnout plummets in the second round. If instead the first round occurs before Election Day, as in a nonpartisan primary, then turnout is often very low in the first round, giving a small and less representative group of voters the power to knock out most of the candidates.

With ranked choice voting, a jurisdiction can get the benefit of two rounds of voting in a single, more representative, higher turnout election. That is why ranked choice voting is often called "instant runoff voting." In this context, RCV can save the jurisdiction a lot of money - the entire cost of a second election - while helping promote majority rule and civil campaigning. This has been the motivation for the adoption of RCV in places like San Francisco (replacing runoffs) and Minneapolis (replacing primaries).

Including Military and Overseas Voters in Runoff Elections

Protecting the right to vote for men and women serving overseas in the armed forces or living abroad is of the highest importance. In places with runoff elections, including deployed military and other overseas voters means sending and receiving ballots multiple times: once for the first election and then again for the second. However, international mail takes time, and so military and overseas voters may not have time to receive, complete, and return a runoff ballot before the day of the election, which is why federal law requires at least 45 days between rounds of voting in federal elections. Still, many state and local runoff elections occur as little as one week after the first round, effectively disenfranchising overseas and military voters.

With RCV ballots, a military or overseas voter can vote in the first round and then rank their back-up candidates. Then, when the runoff occurs, the ranked ballot is counted for whichever candidate in the runoff the overseas voter ranked highest. As of 2016, five states use RCV ballots to include overseas and military voters in runoff elections: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Illinois has created the option for local jurisdictions to use this reform as well, and Springfield, IL has adopted it pursuant to that option.

RCV ballots can also help overseas and military voters participate in presidential primaries. Rather than returning a ballot only to find that it can't be counted because their candidate withdrew by the time the ballot was counted, they can return a ranked ballot, so that their vote can count for their next choice if their favorite has withdrawn.

For more information, see FairVote's Policy Guide items for RCV ballots for military and overseas voters.

Improving the "Top Two" System

The Top Two system used in California and Washington replaces party primaries with a blanket preliminary election, followed by a general election between only the top two candidates from that preliminary contest. Although Top Two has admirable goals, it results in a general election that typically features only the top Republican and Democrat and no other choices, or even two Republicans or two Democrats with no other choices. And often such races happen as the result of vote splitting among a large number of candidates in the preliminary contest.

To enhance voter choice, the same primary election could advance more than two candidates. For example, with "Top Four," the top four candidates from the preliminary contest advance to the general election. RCV can help accommodate the inclusion of more candidates in the general election. FairVote research shows that Top Four would result in many more competitive races both between and within political parties, as well as do more to include candidates outside of the two major parties.

For more information, see Top Four.

Promoting Fair Representation for All When Electing a Legislature in Multi-Winner Districts

All states and all congressional elections currently use winner-take-all rules that elevate district lines over voters. Legislatures elected by winner-take-all are characterized by distortions in partisan representation, entrenchment of incumbents in safe seats, regional polarization, and low representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities. When combined with multi-winner districts electing at least three members, ranked choice voting helps to make elections fairer and more reflective in every district. This ends the cycle of gerrymandering, and creates competitive elections in which every vote really counts.

To see how this can work for the U.S. House of Representatives, see FairVote's Ranked Choice Voting Act.

To see how it can impact your community, see FairVote's Policy Guide item for RCV for at-large local elections.

To see how multi-winner RCV is working in Cambridge, Massachusetts, see Spotlight: Cambridge

How RCV Works

Ranked choice voting (RCV) describes voting systems that allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference, and then uses those rankings to elect candidates able to combine strong first choice support with the ability to earn second and third choice support.

RCV is straightforward for voters: rank candidates in order of choice. Voters can rank as many candidates as they want, without fear that ranking others will hurt the chances of their favorite candidate. Exit polls and ballot analyses from ranked choice voting elections demonstrate that voters overwhelmingly understood how to rank candidates.

How the votes are counted depends on whether RCV is used to elect a single office, like a mayor or governor, or if it is used to elect more than one position at once, like for a city council or state legislature or for Congress in a multi-winner district.

When Electing One Candidate to Office

For a single office, like for a mayor or governor, RCV helps to elect a candidate more reflective of a majority of voters in a single election even when several viable candidates are in the race. It does this by counting the votes in rounds:

Voters get to rank candidates in order of choice. If a candidate receives more than half of the first choices, they win, just like any other election. If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who picked that candidate as 'number 1' will have their votes count for their next choice. This process continues until a candidate wins with more than half of the votes. This video demonstrates the process:

Note that when used to elect a single office, ranked choice voting may be called instant runoff voting, because it allows a jurisdiction to have the benefits of runoff elections without the need for a second round of voting.

When Electing More Than One Candidate in a Multi-Winner Election

For a multi-winner election, like a city council elected at-large or a state legislature elected in a multi-winner district, RCV helps to elect candidates more reflective of the spectrum of voters.

Ranked choice voting in multi-winner elections is an American form of proportional representation. This means candidates who receive a certain share of votes will be elected; this share of votes is called the threshold. A candidate who reaches the threshold is elected, and any excess votes over the threshold are then counted for the voters' second choices. Then, after excess votes are counted, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. The voters who selected the defeated candidate as a first choice will then have their votes counted for their second choice. This process continues until all seats are filled. This video demonstrates the process:

For a more detailed explanation, including a table showing results from a hypothetical election, see our Multi-Winner RCV Example page.

For details on how this could work to transform the U.S. House of Representatives into a much more effective and representative body, see FairVote's proposed Fair Representation Act.

Note that when used to elect a multiple candidates to office, ranked choice voting is a form of fair representation voting, and it may be called single transferable vote or STV.

FAQ

What is ranked choice voting?

Ranked choice voting is an increasingly common election method that allows voters to rank candidates in order of choice. Those rankings ensure that as many voters as possible will help elect a candidate they support.

Ranked choice voting has a long history of use in U.S. elections. It has been used to elect city councils in more than two dozen cities, including New York City, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Boulder. It is used to elect multiple offices in Cambridge, MA and in Minneapolis, MN, and it is used to elect single-winner offices in four cities in the Bay Area in California, the two largest cities in Minnesota, and other cities in Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, and Maryland. Four states use ranked choice ballots to ensure that overseas and military voters can fully express their choices in elections that may go to a runoff. On Election Day 2016, Maine voters passed a ballot initiative with 52% support to go to ranked choice voting for election of their governor, U.S. Senators, U.S. House Members, and both houses of their state legislature.

Ranked choice voting is widely used in the English-speaking world. It is used in at least one election by every voter in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Its single-winner method is recommended by Robert's Rules of Order for elections of officers when repeated voting is impractical and, as a result, widely used in non-governmental elections.

Is ranked choice voting the same as instant runoff voting/single transferable vote/preference voting/the alternative vote?

Yes. The terms "instant runoff voting," "single transferable vote," "preference voting," "the alternative vote," all refer to ranked choice voting.

Usually, the term "instant runoff voting" or "IRV" only refers to electing a single-winner office like mayor or governor, because when used to elect one candidate, RCV allows a jurisdiction to have the benefits of multiple runoff elections, but voters only need to vote a single time.

Also, the term "single transferable vote" or "STV" usually refers to electing a multi-winner office, like a city council or legislature. It is a "single" vote, because every voter has one vote, as compared to block voting, in which voters may vote for more than one candidate if more than one will be elected; and it is a "transferable" vote, because it uses round-by-round tabulation in which votes may "transfer" from candidates who are elected or who are defeated in the prior round.

See our glossary for more details and other terms.

Why is ranked choice voting better?

Ranked choice voting has a number of benefits, including promoting majority support, minimizing negative campaigning, and providing voters with more choices. In multi-winner districts, it can promote fairer and more inclusive representation than winner-take-all methods. For example, the Fair Representation Act for Congress would help ensure that Representatives to Congress would better represent the full spectrum of voter opinion in the United States and have more incentive to work across party lines in the interest of their constituents.

For more detail, see Benefits of Ranked Choice Voting and Problems RCV Can Help Solve.

How does ranked choice voting work?

Ranked choice voting is simple for voters: rank candidates in order of choice. Voters can rank as many or as few voters as they want to. The votes are counted to ensure that as many voters as possible help to elect a candidate they support. In a single-winner election like for mayor or governor, that means that ranked choice voting helps to elect a candidate with majority support. In a multi-winner election, it means that ranked choice voting helps a supermajority of voters elect a candidate they support, by allowing smaller groups of voters to each elect one of the winners.

To see how ranked choice voting works in detail, see How Ranked Choice Voting Works.

Where is ranked choice voting used?

Ranked choice voting has been adopted for state and federal elections in Maine, and for U.S. cities in ten states. It is used by overseas and military voters to vote in places with runoff elections in five other states. Over 50 U.S. colleges and universities use ranked choice voting to elect student government officers. Internationally, it is used by every voter in six countries and in local elections in many more. Ranked choice voting is recommended for private organizations by Roberts Rules of Order, and many private organizations use it, including the Academy Awards in both nominating and selecting the winner for its prestigious awards. For more detail, see the following resources:

Ranked Choice Voting in U.S. Elections
Ranked Choice Voting on Campus
Ranked Choice Voting in Private Organizations and Corporations
International Election Systems

What about other "alternative" voting reforms, like Top Two, party list proportional representation, cumulative voting, approval voting, or others?

There are many ways to elect officers. Although they all have some benefits and they all have some flaws, FairVote has identified ranked choice voting as the most empowering and effective voting method for use in United States elections, from city councils to Congress. To learn more about other methods, see the following resources:

For other forms of proportional representation, see Other Fair Voting Methods
For our research and criticism of "Top Two," see For alternative single-winner election methods like approval voting, see Alternatives to Ranked Choice Voting
Ask a question
Resources and Links

RCV Toolkit for Local Activists

FairVote is developing a toolkit for local activists to help them bring RCV to their state, county, city, campus, or organization. It includes resources for community assessment, for education, for outreach, and other resources.

Our toolkit for activists: RCV in Your Community

Our toolkit for RCV on campus: RCV on Campus

Our brochure: Ranked Choice Voting: Vote-Count-Elect

Online RCV Election/Polling Tools

OpaVote allows you to run secure, reliable organizational elections using either single-winner or multi-winner RCV. Check out an example of their embeddable ranked choice voting widget here. You can also run polls to educate voters, and post them on social media. Here is a great example of a poll we created for the 2018 World Cup. Here are the results.

RCV and Civility Study

In 2013, FairVote received a generous grant from the Democracy Fund to conduct a comprehensive two-year study of the impact of ranked choice voting (RCV) on campaign cooperation and civility in local elections in the U.S. Research conducted by the Eagleton Poll at Rutgers University and a core team of four academics led by Professor Caroline Tolbert of the University of Iowa found that voters in cities with RCV were more satisfied with candidate conduct and perceived less candidate criticism and negativity. A review of newspaper coverage also demonstrated more positive coverage in RCV cities than non-RCV cities in 2013. In RCV city, RCV was supported by a majority of voters who expressed an opinion.

The Ranked Choice Voting and Civility Project.
2015 report on RCV in cities.
2014 Eagleton Poll RCV Survey Results.

Testimony and Presentations

FairVote staff and supporters have provided written and oral testimony in support of RCV in a variety of contexts.

2017
Rob Richie: letter of support for Hawaii bill adopting RCV for vacancy elections
2016
FairVote: Testimony for the Democratic Party Platform Committee on RCV in presidential primaries and other contexts Rob Richie: brief to the Canadian Special Committee on Electoral Reform providing information on RCV in the U.S. context FairVote: testimony on Potomac Compact for Fair Representation and other redistricting bills in Maryland FairVote, Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County: testimony on Maryland local options bill for Montgomery County vacancy elections
2015
Drew Spencer: testimony on RCV in Massachusetts Drew Spencer and Grace Ramsey: testimony on RCV for school board vacancy elections in Montgomery County, Maryland Dania Korkor's 2015 presentation to Road Scholar on RCV for Congress
2014
Rob Richie: testimony to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration on RCV ballots for military and overseas voters Drew Spencer: testimony on multi-winner RCV in Montgomery County, Maryland FairVote: testimony on RCV in multi-winner districts in Virginia
2013 or earlier
Devin McCarthy and Drew Spencer's 2013 testimony on RCV in multi-winner districts in Maryland Rob Richie's 2010 presentation on RCV in Portland, Maine Rob Richie's 2009 testimony on RCV in New York State
Model Legislation

FairVote has worked with experienced attorneys and legislative drafters to ensure that its model legislation meets best practices.
Model state statute or city ordinance (single and multi-seat RCV) Model Constitutional amendment or city charter amendment
Legislation from Other Jurisdictions
Maine: text of citizen initiative for ranked choice voting Berkeley (CA) charter provision Oakland (CA) charter provision San Francisco (CA) charter provision San Leandro (CA) city ordinance Memphis (TN) charter provision Minneapolis (MN) charter provision Minneapolis (MN) city ordinance St. Paul (MN) city ordinance Portland (ME) charter provision Takoma Park (MD) city ordinance Telluride (CO) ballot measure (Question 202) Santa Fe (NM) city charter (Sec. 4.06)
Sample Ballots

Ballot usability is an important aspect of any successful election. FairVote has developed a sample ranked choice voting ballot based on best practices in usability. We also highlight approaches taken by actual jurisdictions in designing ranked ballots to highlight key decisions that went into our sample ballot.
FairVote's Sample RCV Ballot
Ballots from Other Jurisdictions
Cambridge, MA: 2001 School Committee South Carolina: 2006 Republican Primary Overseas Ballot Portland, ME: 2015 Mayor Portland, ME: 2011 Mayor Minneapolis, MN: 2009 Mayor and City Council Assumption Parish, LA: 2001 Judicial Election Overseas Ballot Wicklow, Ireland: 2002 Dáil Éireann (Irish legislature)
Ireland hand-counts ballots in its multi-winner RCV elections, so voters ranked candidates by writing numerals rather than filling in ovals.
Ranked Voting Guidelines, by Chris Jerdonek, Ph.D. (2007) Report on RCV and Election Integrity Sample RCV ballot RCV ballot counting options Sample RFP language (short) Sample RFP language (long) Louisiana in 2001 hand counted RCV ballots for military and overseas voters, so voters ranked by writing numerals rather than filling in ovals. Ranked Choice Voting & Under-Represented Communities (trifold brochure) RCV 101 handout
Minneapolis was limited in 2009 to three rankings and listing each candidate's name three times due to older voting equipment.
Federal Officeholders This was Portland's first mayoral election and it attracted a large number of candidates; voters were permitted to rank all candidates.
Election Administration

FairVote supports election administrators in their goal to make RCV elections as easy as possible for voters and poll-workers and ensuring that everyone involved can be confident in the security and accuracy of the results. See our page on RCV and election administration for even more resources.

Resources for Administrators

Voter Education Materials

Endorsers

Adopting ranked choice voting is not about changing who wins, but how they win. That's why Americans from every part of the political spectrum have recognized ranked choice voting as a fairer way to elect our political leaders.

Giving voters meaningful choice, ensuring majority rule and fair representation, encouraging more civil campaigns, and eliminating costly, low-turnout runoff elections simply aren't partisan goals. Better elections are something we can all get behind, which is why prominent politicians and notable membership organizations have supported ranked choice voting - also known as "instant runoff voting" or "preferential voting" - for years. The list below highlights some of these people and groups.

Statewide Officeholders

State Legislative and Local Officeholders

League of Women Voters State and Local Groups

Alameda County (CA) Democratic Party

Alaska Republican Party

California Democratic Party

Colorado Democratic Party

Green Party

Libertarian Party

Maine Democratic Party

Massachusetts Democratic Party

Minneapolis, MN DFL Party

Progressive Democrats of America

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Research on Ranked Choice Voting

The following briefly describes and links to research on the use of ranked choice voting. This page was last updated April, 2019. For more detailed information, check out our research page on ranked choice voting.

Taken together, this research suggests that ranked choice voting, whether used in single-winner or multi-winner elections, helps promote inclusive and civil campaigning, and that voters of all demographics use it effectively. When used in multi-winner elections, it also promotes fair representation and good governance based on a variety of metrics.

Independent scholarly research

Self-Reported Understanding of Ranked-Choice Voting

Todd Donovan (Western Washington University), Caroline Tolbert (University of Iowa), and Kellen Gracey (University of Iowa)

Available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ssqu.12651

Researchers conducted an immediate post-election survey of voters in four California jurisdictions that used RCV in November, 2014, while simultaneously surveying voters in similar California jurisdictions electing with single-choice plurality. The surveys asked voters how well they understood voting instructions and how well they understood various electoral systems including ranked choice voting, plurality voting, "winner-take-all voting rules" and the state's top two primary system. The results did not show any significant racial or ethnic differences in understanding of either voting instructions or electoral systems.

Campaign civility under preferential and plurality voting

Todd Donovan (Western Washington University), Caroline Tolbert (University of Iowa), and Kellen Gracey (University of Iowa)

Available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379416000299

In November 2013, 2,400 likely voters in 10 cities were surveyed about their local elections. Three cities had just held local elections using RCV (Minneapolis and St. Paul (MN) and Cambridge (MA)), and seven control cities had used plurality voting in their November elections. The surveys show that likely voters in cities that used RCV were more satisfied with the conduct of local campaigns than people in similar cities with plurality (first-past-the-post) elections, and were more likely to have in-person contact with candidates for office. People in cities with RCV were also less likely to view campaigns as negative, and less likely to respond that candidates were frequently criticizing each other. The results are consistent across a series of robustness checks.

Voter participation with ranked choice voting in the United States

David C. Kimball (University of Missouri-St. Louis) and Joseph Anthony

Available at http://www.umsl.edu/~kimballd/KimballRCV.pdf

This study examines the degree to which voters turn out to vote and properly cast their votes, comparing ranked choice voting to plurality voting in the United States. It compares demographically similar cities with RCV and plurality voting. It finds that RCV helps increase voter participation in decisive elections when reducing the substantial drop in voter participation that commonly occurs between primary and general elections and between first round and runoff elections, but otherwise does not appear to have a strong positive or negative impact on voter turnout and ballot completion. In a case study of Minneapolis, it finds similar levels of socioeconomic and racial disparities in voter participation in plurality as in RCV elections. The study found no increase in total residual voters (meaning total ballots where voters skipped voting in the election or invalidated their ballot in that election) compared to non-RCV elections. This is particularly significant finding in California city elections with RCV, because they are held at the same time as non-RCV races like president or governor that appear first on the ballot and are the bigger drivers of participation. Kimball and Anthony have updated their research for presentation at the September 2016 American Political Science Association conference and are preparing to submit their work for publication in the fall.

The alternative vote: Do changes in single-member voting systems affect descriptive representation of women and minorities?

Sarah John, Haley Smith and Elizabeth Zack

Available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379417304006

This study compares cities with ranked choice voting in the California Bay Area to a series of similar control cities. Using a difference-in-difference research design, it shows that applying ranked choice voting to single-winner elections has not caused any decline in descriptive representation, and has improved representation of women and women of color.

FairVote research

Ranked choice voting in 2018: A mid-year report

Available at https://www.fairvote.org/ranked_choice_voting_in_2018_a_mid_year_report

This white paper summarizes and analyzes various data points from elections taking place between March and June of 2018, including in Santa Fe (NM), San Francisco (CA), and in Maine's state and federal primary elections. In particular, voter turnout surpassed expectations in all three jurisdictions, implementation of RCV was smooth and inexpensive, voters used the ballot well, and winners demonstrated both strong core support and broad back-up support.

Voter experience with ranked choice voting in San Francisco: Voter turnout and use of rankings, 2004-2016

Available at https://www.fairvote.org/voter_experience_with_ranked_choice_voting_in_san_francisco

This report analyzes data from the 68 ranked choice voting elections that took place in San Francisco from 2004-2016. It finds that San Francisco voters have generally made effective use of the ranked choice ballot despite the limitations of San Francisco's legacy voting equipment, especially compared to the prior system based on two-round runoff elections. In contests with multiple candidates that required multiple rounds of counting, voters are increasingly likely to rank second and third choices; 74.5 percent of ballots rank at least two candidates and 60.8 percent rank three (the maximum allowed on the San Francisco ballot). Skipped rankings are rare and have become rare over time. Overvotes are also rare, and occur at comparable rates to non-RCV races with similar numbers of candidates.

Structural electoral reform: Impact, methods, and opportunities

Available at http://www.fairvote.org/comparative-structural-reform

This 2015 report presents an extensive assessment of the potential impact of 37 structural reforms to election laws and legislative structures in collaboration with fourteen prominent political scientists. The participating scholars were asked to assess each reform's impact on 16 different criteria fitting within four topline categories: legislative functionality, electoral accountability, voter engagement, and openness of process. In the scholars' assessment, the three structural reforms that would have the greatest positive impact on U.S. democracy are two forms of multi-winner RCV (ranked choice voting in five-winner districts, and ranked choice voting in three-winner districts) and Districts Plus (a form of mixed-member proportional representation). Single winner forms of RCV were also judged to have a positive impact compared to many of the other reforms that were analyzed. The report also includes background information on each reform with links to a large number of scholarly resources.

Ranked choice voting and racial minority voting rights

Available at https://www.fairvote.org/rcv_and_racial_minority_voting_rights_in_the_bay_area

Assessment of the election rates of people of color in the California Bay Area before and after the adoption of RCV. People of color hold office at a higher rate under RCV than under the prior system. People of color win office more often under RCV across three ways of categorizing districts: plurality-minority (districts where one ethnic minority group is the largest in the district); white-plurality (districts where ethnic minority groups are collectively in the majority but whites are the single largest group); and white-majority.

Ranked choice voting in practice: Candidate civility in ranked choice elections, 2013 & 2014 survey brief

Available at https://fairvote.app.box.com/v/APSA-Civility-Brief-2015

The Eagleton Poll at Rutgers University conducted two polls-one in 2013 and another in 2014-that explore the impact of RCV on city elections in the United States. In both surveys, more respondents in cities using RCV reported candidates spent less time criticizing opponents than in cities that did not use RCV. More respondents in cities using RCV reported less negative campaigns than in cities that did not use RCV. In the 2013 survey, 90% of respondents in RCV cities found the RCV ballot easy to understand; 89% of respondents in RCV cities in California found the RCV ballot easy to understand. A majority of all respondents in both surveys believed RCV should be used in local elections in their city. Support was greatest in cities already using RCV.

Voter understanding and use of ranked choice voting

Available at https://fairvote.app.box.com/v/RCVunderstandingmemo

This memo focuses on voter experience with RCV in U.S. cities, based on analysis of RCV ballots after they were cast and public opinion surveys. It summarizes research suggesting that voters understand RCV at levels comparable other systems (like the "Top Two" primary used in California and Washington) and that they readily use the option to rank candidates for local offices. It provides detailed information on overvote and undervote rates in RCV elections. Notably, more than 99% of voters in Bay Area elections cast an RCV ballot that counts and more than eight in ten rank more than one candidate in competitive multi-candidate mayoral elections.

Impact of ranked choice voting on representation: How ranked choice voting affects women and people of color in California

Representation2020

Available at https://fairvote.app.box.com/v/RCV-Representation-BayArea

This study examines the effect of ranked choice voting on women and people of color running for elected office in the California Bay Area. San Francisco began using RCV in 2004 for their city elections, followed by Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro in 2010. Women and people of color hold more than 80% of these cities' 52 offices that have been elected by RCV. The findings of the study reveal that RCV increases descriptive representation for women, people of color, and women of color. Some reasons for RCV's positive effects can be related to how often it replaces low, unrepresentative turnout elections and that it allows for multiple candidates appealing to the same community to run without splitting the vote. The unambiguously positive impact of RCV on descriptive representation encourages further study.

Escaping the thicket: The ranked choice voting solution to America's districting crisis

Available at https://fairvote.app.box.com/v/EscapingtheThicket

In this law review article, FairVote staff make the case for the use of multi-winner districts with ranked choice voting for U.S. congressional elections. It reviews the history of plurality voting in U.S. congressional elections, and how this emphasis on single-winner elections intersects with the Voting Rights Act, which makes vote dilution of racial and ethnic minority populations illegal. In some cases brought under the Voting Rights Act, jurisdictions have adopted semi-proportional voting methods rather than the use of single-winner districts. The articles reviews what makes those voting methods most effective, and concludes that they would have their most potent application in congressional elections. It lays out a proposal for multi-winner districts with ranked choice voting for congressional elections and describes its likely impact.

The Fair Representation Act report

Available at https://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation_act_report

This report analyzes the impact of a series of hypothetical district maps generated by Auto-Redistrict, an open source redistricting algorithm programmed to approximate the requirements of the Fair Representation Act of 2017, HR 3057. It assumes the use of multi-winner ranked choice voting, as required by the bill, in the automatically generated multi-winner district maps. It finds that the system implemented by the bill would result in greater competition and accountability, more accurate and actual representation, great opportunities for moderates and independents, and better descriptive representation.

RCV and Election Administration

FairVote supports election administrators in their goal to make RCV elections as easy as possible for voters and poll-workers and ensuring that everyone involved can be confident in the security and accuracy of the results.

Election administration includes every aspect of carrying out the election according to its requirements in law. That includes ballot design, acquisition of voting systems (the suite of hardware and software used for voting and vote-counting), the establishment and administration of polling places, alternative arrangements for absentee or overseas voters as well as early voting, accuracy testing and audits, election results reporting, and much more. Although many in election administration worry that implementation of ranked choice voting will complicate these tasks, experience proves that administering a ranked choice voting election can be as efficient and effective as any other election.

The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is the leading resource for election administration officials tasked with carrying out an RCV election, and provides a compilation of best practices and first-hand experiences from jurisdictions that have used ranked choice voting. The website and overall project serve as a resource for voters, election administrators, policy makers, and candidates.

You can also access resources on our website related to ballot design, vote counting options, voting systems, RFPs, and audits/recounts on our RCV and Election Administration page.

Try RCV using OpaVote

FairVote is partnering with OpaVote, a platform that allows users to try different types of voting systems like Ranked Choice Voting! You can try it for free, just sign-up!

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National Popular Vote Initative

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The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia ( Explanation). It has been enacted into law by 15 states and DC with 195 electoral votes ( Map of states). It needs an additional 75 electoral votes to go into effect.

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State status: AK AL AR AZ CA CO CT DC DE FL GA HI IA ID IL IN KS KY LA MA MD ME MI MN MO MS MT NC ND NE NH NJ NM NV NY OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VA VT WA WI WV WY The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia (Explanation).