How to Combat Extremism & Rebuild the Political Middle

If you're sick of the mudslinging and fear-mongering of Campaign 2020, how about some good news for a change - good news about political reforms that will make our elections fairer and help combat political extremism and rebuild the political middle..

Surprise. Surprise. Grass roots citizen movements from Florida to Alaska and in-between have put electoral reforms on the ballot for Nov 3. Different states, different proposals. But two common threads - more voice and choice for average voters, more clout for the political center.

In Florida and Arizona, a big push to empower political independents by replacing party primary elections with one big, wide open non-partisan primary for all candidates, and all voters.

Massachusetts, Alaska and St. Louis, Missouri are deciding whether to adopt Rank Choice Voting, a system to give more choices to voters, to require the winning candidates to get a majority of the total vote, and to push candidates to appeal to a broad spectrum of voters.

And Gerrymander reform to keep politicians from rigging election maps to give them a lock on, power. A partial reform is on the ballot in Virginia. In Missouri, a battle royal is under way over aa Darth Vader backlash from the politicians in the legislature trying to kill a 2018 reform adopted by voters in 2018.