Catch up on the latest in electoral reform news with our round up of folks across the country writing and talking about FairVote’s reform vision.

OpaVote is a website for running elections online, and in this blog post we interview, Jeff O'Neill, the founder of OpaVote and a former FairVote legal intern in 2003. If you are part of an organization that holds elections using ranked choice voting, then you may find OpaVote a useful service for running your election.

Every four years, the Democratic and Republican parties’ national conventions draw an enormous amount of public attention as the parties select their presidential candidates and set their direction for the next four years. However, much less attention is paid to the smaller state and local conventions that are also held in the leadup to the national convention. Each of these conventions has its own rules, including the rules governing how the nominees to be selected at the convention will be chosen, and how the various party officials will be elected.

It’s July in an election year which means that, among other things, it’s convention time. In the lead up to the conventions, parties are in a flurry of preparation, trying to get every element of their respective events together in time for the opening gavel.

The latest roundup of press covering FairVote's reform vision, including pieces in TIME Magazine, Newsweek, In These Times, and The New York Times.

The New York City Council took a step forward in improving elections by including the adoption of ranked choice voting in its legislative agenda for the New York State Legislature. The City Council wrote in favor of legislation proposed by Assemblyman Brian Kavanaugh that would allow New York City to implement RCV for citywide primary elections.

The Maryland General Assembly (Maryland’s state legislature) has begun its 2016 legislative session. In Montgomery County (Maryland’s most populous county and home to FairVote) Delegates to the General Assembly will consider a local bill that represents an important step forward in advancing ranked choice voting (RCV) for County elections.

This legislative session, members of the Maryland state legislature from Montgomery County will have an opportunity to start a conversation about suffrage and representation. When the 2016 session starts on January 13th, legislators will consider local bill MC 25-16, which would amend the Maryland Constitution to allow the County to expand voting rights to non-citizen residents, as well as 16 and 17 year olds, for Board of Education elections.

New Zealand uses RCV in several of its major cities, including mayor and city council of Wellington, and just held a national referendum with ranked choice voting, called “preferential voting” in the country. The government has invested tens of millions of dollars in a two-round process in which the current flag will face off against the flag that was chosen in a recent RCV election among five alternative flags.

There is a movement growing in the District of Columbia to pass the “Youth Voting Amendment Act of 2015.” Councilmember Charles Allen (Ward-6) introduced legislation to lower the voting age to 16 for local and federal elections. FairVote is excited to support local residents in this endeavor along with our allies at National Youth Rights Association, CIRCLE, Young Women’s Project, and Youth For National Change.