Steven Rosenfeld

Steven Rosenfeld is a senior writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is a national political reporter focusing on democracy issues. He has reported for nationwide public radio networks, websites, and newspapers and produced talk radio and music podcasts. He has written five books, including profiles of campaigns, voter suppression, voting rights guides, and a WWII survival story currently being made into a film. His latest book is Democracy Betrayed: How Superdelegates, Redistricting, Party Insiders, and the Electoral College Rigged the 2016 Election (Hot Books, March 2018).
Articles by this author
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Views Wednesday, June 17, 2020 2020 Voters' Calendar—The General Election Starts in August On June 9, Georgia Democrats set not only a primary turnout record, but a lamp for the nation. Over a million voters overcame obstacles, including long lines, relocated polling places, and a complicated vote-by-mail application process, to cast their votes. And a majority of ballots were cast by... Read more |
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Views Thursday, November 07, 2019 Social Media Is Amplifying Trump’s Rants and Disinformation More Than Ever—Can Society Protect Itself? As 2020 nears, disinformation—intentionally false political propaganda—is increasing and getting nastier. Central to this disturbing trend is President Trump, whose re-election campaign and allies revel in mixing selected truths, half-truths, knowing distortions and outright lies, especially with... Read more |
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Views Friday, August 23, 2019 Is a Nationally Widespread New Voting System Ready for the 2020 Elections? A new precinct-based voting system being widely acquired by states and counties before 2020 that relies on printed bar codes to record votes, not handmade ink marks, may pose problems for independent efforts seeking to double-check election results. The Express Vote , from the nation’s largest... Read more |
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Views Friday, August 09, 2019 Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies A new book by one of the nation’s foremost civil liberties lawyers powerfully describes how America’s constitutional checks and balances are being pushed to the brink by a president who is consciously following Adolf Hitler’s extremist propaganda and policy template from the early 1930s—when the... Read more |
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Views Thursday, June 27, 2019 The GOP Is Embracing More Ruthless Power Grabs in the Face of Huge Political Challenges On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on two cases highlighting the collision between partisan power grabs and setting the ground rules for two of the most important elections in America—those for U.S. House and state legislative chambers. One ruling concerns whether the Trump... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, June 18, 2019 Phone and Online Voting for Democrats in the 2020 Caucuses? DNC Is at a Major Crossroads The Democratic National Committee may reverse course on its plans to increase participation in 2020 presidential caucus states by offering off-site voting options—starting with telephone voting in Iowa and possibly online voting in other states. That prospect of a reversal, at least in the early... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, June 05, 2019 America Is Missing Its Chance to Fix Our Election System Before We Vote in 2020 As 2020’s elections edge closer, recent troubling developments are casting new light on an old question—what will it take for the results to be trusted? The emergence of powerful forms of online political propaganda, the absence of progress in 2019 state legislatures on improving audits and... Read more |
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Views Saturday, April 06, 2019 Why Many 2020 Swing States Will Produce Recount Headaches If the 2020 presidential election hinges on recounts in the closest battleground states, there could be a crisis even greater than the 2000 election where the U.S. Supreme Court ended a Florida recount in its infamous Bush v. Gore ruling. Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 14, 2019 Good-Bye Electoral College? Popular Vote Movement Gaining Steam There’s new momentum around the National Popular Vote movement, where states will award Electoral College votes to elect the president based on which candidate has won the most votes nationwide—instead of today’s state-by-state winner-take-all system. “It does have new momentum, because there was a... Read more |
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Views Friday, February 01, 2019 Online Voting Revolution Coming to 2020 for Dems—Starting in Iowa, Biggest Changes to Nomination Process in 50 Years Iowa’s Democratic Party is leaning toward offering party members the option of participating in their 2020 presidential caucuses via internet and telephone balloting. However, recent experiences of Republican state parties elsewhere with online voting suggest that Iowa faces formidable challenges... Read more |