The Unite America Institute maintains this resource library for researchers, journalists, civic leaders, and others seeking accessible information on election reform, democratic institutions, and the evidence behind different approaches to improving American democracy.

General Policy

• Redistricting Systems: A 50-State Overview | National Conference of State Legislatures
• Gerrymandering Threat Index | RepresentUs (May 2021)
• Designing Independent Redistricting Commissions | Campaign Legal Center (July 2018)
• Democracy Reform: State Approaches to Voting and Redistricting | Millennial Action Project (October 2020)
• Gerrymandering & Fair Representation | Brennan Center (2020)
• A Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting | Brennan Center ‍

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Academic Literature 

• The Impact of Partisan Gerrymandering on Political Parties (Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos and Christopher Warshaw | Legislative Studies Quarterly) 
• Reevaluating the Effects of Redistricting on Electoral Competition (Jamie L. Carson, Michael H. Crespin & Ryan D. Williamson | State Politics & Policy Quarterly) 
• Party Lines: Competition, Partisanship, and Congressional Redistricting (Thomas E. Mann & Bruce E. Cain | Brookings Institute Press) 
  

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Columns & Commentary 

• The Peril and Promise of Redistricting Reform in H.R. 1 | Harvard Law Review Blog (February 2021)
• “Create More Competitive Districts to Limit Extremism,” Richard H. Pildes | RealClear Politics (April 2021)
• Will We Ever Slay the Evil Gerrymander?” Alan Ehrenhalt | Governing (November 2020)
• “What is gerrymandering and why is it problematic?”  Christopher Ingraham | Washington Post (June 2019)
• “The Best Way to Fix Gerrymandering is to Make it Useless,” Lee Drutman | The New York Times (June 2018)
• The Peril and Promise of Redistricting Reform in H.R. 1 | Harvard Law Review Blog (February 2021)
  

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Partner Organizations 

• Campaign Legal Center
• RepresentUS
• The People
• Princeton Gerrymandering Project

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General Policy 

• Primaries by State | Open Primaries 
• State Primary Election Types | National Conference of State Legislatures
  

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Reports from Experts 

• Primaries: More than One Way to Find a Party Nominee | National Conference of State Legislatures (January 2021)
• Monopoly Politics 2020: The Root of Dysfunction in the U.S. House of Representatives | FairVote (December 2020)
• The Next Great Migration: The Rise of Independent Voters | Open Primaries (November 2020)
• The Primaries Project: 2018 Midterms | Brookings (October 2018) 
• America Goes to the Polls 2018 | Nonprofit VOTE (2018)
• Political Polarization and Voters in the 2018 Congressional Primaries | Brookings Institute (October 2018)
• 2018 Primary Election Turnout & Reforms | Bipartisan Policy Center (November 2018) 
• State of Reform | Unite America (June 2020)
• The Primary Problem | Unite America Institute (March 2021)
  

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Academic Literature 

• A Promise Fulfilled? Open Primaries and Representation (Karen M. Kaufmann, James G. Gimpel and Adam H. Hoffman | The Journal of Politics) 
• Primary Election Systems and Representation (Elizabeth Gerber and Rebecca Morton | Journal of Law Economics, & Organization) 
• Reducing Legislative Polarization: Top-Two and Open Primaries Are Associated with More Moderate Legislators (Christian Grose | Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy)
• Ideological Moderates Won’t Run: How Party Fit Matters for Partisan Polarization in Congress (Danielle Thomsen | The Journal of Politics)
• Candidates' policy strategies in primary elections: does strategic voting by the primary electorate matter? (James Adams and Samuel Merrill III | Public Choice)
  

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Columns & Commentary 

• “Alaska decides to switch to open primaries and ranked elections,” The Fulcrum (November 2020)
• “North to the Future: Alaska leads the way, passing sweeping election reform via ballot initiative,” Unite America (November 2020)
• “Fixing U.S. Politics,” Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. Porter | Harvard Business Review (July/August 2020)
• “Opinion: American politics rewards entrenched interests and career politicians. Innovations in voting could help change that,” Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. Porter | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (June 2020)
• “Party Primaries Must Go,” Nick Troiano | The Atlantic (March 2021)
  

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Partner Organizations 

• Open Primaries 
• RepresentUS
• Institute for Political Innovation

Ranked Choice Voting Policy & Administration 

• Recounts of Ranked-Choice Voting Elections | Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center (September 2022)

• Post-Election Audits and Ranked-Choice Voting | Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center (September 2022)

• Ranked-Choice Voting Ballot Usage Analysis and Design Recommendations | Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center (September 2022)

• Best Practices for Releasing RCV Election Results | Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center (September 2022)

• Best practices for ranked choice voting ballots and other materials | Center for Civic Design (February 2017) 

• What is Ranked Choice Voting | Where RCV is Used |  Benefits of RCV | FairVote (April 2019) ‍

• Single-winner vs. Multi-winner Ranked Choice Voting | Represent Women 
  

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Reports from Experts 

• In Ranked Choice Elections, Women WIN | RepresentWOMEN (July 2020) 
• Ranked Choice Voting in 2020 Presidential Primary Elections | FairVote (July 2020)
• Ranked Choice Voting: The Solution to the Presidential Primary Predicament | Unite America Institute (June 2020)
• Ranked Choice Voting Elections Benefit Candidates and Voters of Color | FairVote (May 2021)
• The Conservative Case for Ranked Choice Voting | Independence Institute (May 2021) 
  

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Academic Literature 

• The alternative vote: Do changes in single-member voting systems affect descriptive representation of women and minorities (Sarah John, Haley Smith, Elizabeth Zack | Electoral Studies)
• Ranked Choice Voting and Racial Minority Voting Rights: An Analysis of Representation of People of Color in the Bay Area (4 Pager | FairVote) 
• “Campaign civility under preferential and plurality voting,” (Donovan, Todd et al. | Electoral Studies Volume 42)
• Voter Participation with Ranked Choice Voting in the United States (David C. Kimball & Joseph Anthony | University of Missouri‐St. Louis)
  

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Columns & Commentary 

• “A Vote for Equity at the Polls,” Danielle Adam | Boston Globe (September 2020)
• “How Does Ranked-Choice Voting Work in New York?” Sarah Almukhtar, Jazmine Hughes, Eden Weingart | The New York Times (April 2021)
• “In New York City, Ranked Choice Voting Puts the People in Charge,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Jumaane D. Williams | The Nation (May 2021)
• “Andrew Yang, Bill Weld: Why ranked choice voting will improve America's elections,” Andrew Yang and Bill Weld | USA Today (October 2020)
• “Utah needs ranked choice voting in this year’s crowded gubernatorial race” Stan Lockhart | Dessert News (June 2020) 
• “We’re Doing Elections Wrong,” Hasan Minhaj | The Patriot Act, Netflix (June 2020) 
• “Why Ranked Choice Voting is Having a Moment,” Jacey Fortin | New York TImes (February 2020)  
• “What Is Ranked-Choice Voting? An Exercise in Representative Democracy, Reformists Say,” Erin Corbett | Fortune (May 2019)
• “New York City Voters Just Adopted Ranked Choice Voting in Elections. Here’s How it Works,” Anna Purna Kambhampaty | Time (November 2019) 
• “One Reform to Save America,” David Brooks | New York Times (May 2018)
  

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Partner Organizations

• FairVote 
• Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center 
• Represent Women 
• Center for Civic Design 
• RepresentUS
• Institute for Political Innovation

Election Policy & Administration

• Vote at Home Briefing Flyer | National Vote at Home Institute (August 2019)
• Voting Outside the Polling Place: Absentee, All-Mail, and Other Voting at Home Options | National Conference of State Legislatures (June 2020)
• Vote at Home Status by State | National Vote at Home Institute (May 2020)
• Vote at Home Policy Actions: Covid-19 Response | National Vote at Home Institute (May 2020)

• Voting By Mail/ Absentee Voting & Coronavirus Resources | U.S. Election Assistance Commission
• Proven Bipartisan Solutions for Safe Voting | Millennial Action Project (July 2020)
  

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Turnout

• Voting by Mail in the U.S. (1992-2018) | MIT Data & Science Lab (May 2020)
• The Neutral Partisan Effects of Vote-by-Mail: Evidence from County-Level Roll Outs | Democracy & Polarization Lab, Stanford University (April 2020)
• All-Mail Voting in Colorado Increases Turnout and Reduces Turnout Inequality | Bonica, Adam et al. (April 2020)
• Colorado 2014: Comparisons of Predicted and Actual Turnout | Pantheon Analytics
• Demographics on Voting by Mail | Charles Stewart III, MIT (March 2020)
• How Electoral Institutions Affect Political Accountability: Evidence from All Mail Elections | James Szewczyk, Emory University (June 2018)
• Vote-by-Mail Policy and the 2020 Presidential Election | Erin McGhee, Public Policy Institute of California and Mindy Romero, USC Price School of Public Policy (April 2021)
  

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Security

• Elections Security | U.S. Election Assistance Commission
• Myth-busting the top 10 objections to VAH systems | National Vote at Home Institute (2019)
• The False Narrative of Vote By Mail Fraud | Brennan Center for Justice (April 2020)
  

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Reports from Experts

• How We Voted in 2020: A Topical Look at the Survey of the Performance of American Elections | MIT Election Data & Science Lab (April 2021)
• America Goes to the Polls 2020: Policy and Voter Turnout in the 2020 Election | Nonprofit Vote & U.S. Elections Project (April 2021) 
• The Case Against Restricting Voting Access | R Street (February 2021)
• The Conservative Case for Expanded Access to Absentee Ballots | R Street (June 2020)
• Preparing Your State for an Election Under Pandemic Conditions | Brennan Center for Justice (June 2020)  

• Estimated Costs of Covid-19 Election Resiliency Measures | Brennan Center for Justice (March 2020)

• Accessing the Vote During a Pandemic | Bipartisan Policy Center (May 2020)
• Universally Accessible and Racially Equitable Vote by Mail | Demos (June 2020)
• Colorado Voting Reforms: Early Results | The Pew Charitable Trusts (March 2016)
• Protecting Public Health in the 2020 Elections | Voting Rights Lab, UCLA, and the Union for Concerned Scientists (July 2020)
  

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Noteworthy Columns & Commentary

• Epstein, Reid J. and Stephanie Saul. “Does Vote-by-Mail Favor Democrats? No. It’s a False Argument by Trump,” The New York Times (April 2020)
• Hill, Charlotte et al. “We Should Never Have to Vote in Person Again,” The New York Times (May 2020)
• Persily, Nathaniel and Charles Stewart, III. “Ten Recommendations to Ensure a Healthy and Trustworthy 2020 Election,” (March 2020)
• Drutman, Lee. “There Is No Evidence That Voting By Mail Gives One Party An Advantage,” FiveThirtyEight (May 2020)
• Steele, Michael and Eli Lehrer. “Conservatives need to get behind vote-by-mail options in 2020 election,” The Washington Times (March 2020)
• McReynolds, Amber and Charles Stewart III. “Let’s put the vote-by mail ‘fraud’ myth to rest,” The Hill (April 2020)
• Wyman, Kim. “Republican leader: My state shows why voting by mail is secure and trustworthy,” USA Today (May 2020)

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Partner Organizations

• National Vote at Home Institute
• Voting Rights Lab
• Center for Secure and Modern Elections
• Center for Civic Design
• Center for Tech and Civic Life

Reports from Experts 

• Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America | Katherine Gehl & Michael Porter, Harvard Business Review (September 2017) 
• Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century | American Academy of Arts & Sciences (June 2020) 
• Hidden Tribes: A Study of America's Polarized Landscape | More in Common
• State of Reform | Unite America Institute (June 2020)
• Why is Governing No Longer Good Politics: Reflections from a Thousand Years of Public Service | FixUS (February 2021) 

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Mixed Media

• Podcast: Gehl, Katherine and Michael E. Porter “America's Hidden Duopoly,” Freakonomics (October 2018) 
• Video: How America’s two-party doom loop is driving division | Unite America 
• Video: History is set to repeat | Unite America 

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Columns & Commentary 

• “Make the Senate Great Again,” Ben Sasse | Wall Street Journal (September 2020)
• “Vote Like Your Life Depends on It. Mine Does,” Lisa Rice | Real Clear Politics (June 2020) 
• “Jonahtan Haidt is Trying to Heal America's Division,” Paul Wehner | The Atlantic (May 2020) 
• “Can the Coronavirus Heal Polarization?” Rachel Kleinfeld and Ashley Quarcoo | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (May 2020) 
• “How Business Leaders can Champion Democracy,” Daniella Ballou-Aares and Vineeta Vijayaraghaven | Harvard Business Review (March 2020) 
• “American politics is broken, but here's why you shouldn't give up on the system just yet,” USA Today (February 2020) 
• Hawkings, Betsy Wright. “Political Reform is Good for Republicans and Our Country,” Jason Altmire and Carlos Luis Curbelo | Townhall (November 2019) 
• “The Democracy Doomsayers Consider 2020,” Nicholas Casey | New York Times (November 2019)
• “No silver bullets,” Nick Penniman | The Fulcrum (October 2019) 
•  “Why Do We Let Political Parties Act Like Monopolies?” David Dodson | New York Times (May 2019) 
• “A Way Out of Pendulum Politics,” Nick Troiano | Real Clear Politics (November 2018) 
• “The American Civil War, Part II,” Thomas Friedman | New York Times (October 2018) 
• “One Reform to Save America,” David Brooks | New York Times (May 2018) 

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Recommended Books 

• Drutman, Lee. Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America. Oxford University Press. 2020 
• Gehl, Katherine and Michael Porter. The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy. Harvard Business Review Press. 2020 
• Simon, Neal. Contract to Unite America: Ten Reforms to Reclaim Our Republic. Amplify Publishing. 2020  
• Klein, Ezra. Why We're Polarized. Avid Reader Press. 2020
• Mason, Liliana. Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. University of Chicago Press. 2018
• Altmire, Jason. Dead Center: How Political Polarization Divided America and What We Can Do About It. Sunbury Press. 2017

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Partner Organizations 

• Institute for Political Innovation 
• More in Common 
• FixUS
• RepresentUS
• IssueOne
• Betterchoices.vote
• American Academy of Arts & Sciences 

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