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When California adopted the top-two open primary system in 2010, proponents argued it would help make the state more moderate because candidates would be compelled to court voters across the political spectrum. But since then, most races still end in typical partisan fashion with one Democrat and one Republican duking it out to advance to […]

Contradictory statements from the Trump administration about new rules for legal immigration are confusing employers and stoking fear among green card holders, writes CalMatters’ Wendy Fry. In May the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent out a memo that initially directed most temporary visa holders living in the U.S. to return to their home countries […]

Millions of Californians turned out in voting that ended Tuesday to conclude a wild primary season marked by unprecedented campaign spending, the cratering of a former congressmember and Democratic voters sitting on their ballots waiting for a frontrunner to emerge. At different points, it appeared that two candidates from the same party could advance to […]

Election Day is today, but you’d be hard pressed to find a Californian who expects final results tonight. We’re too accustomed to vote counts that take days or weeks.  That’s a tradeoff that comes with California’s embrace of mail-in voting, writes CalMatters’ Kate Wolffe. As a result, you could be waiting a while to find […]

The latest polls suggest it’s a three-way competition for the top-two spots in the California governor’s race, and a big reason that we don’t have a clear sense of who’s ahead is that many Democratic voters are waiting until the last minute to choose a candidate. In roughly 24 hours, voters across the state will […]

If your doctor’s office has ever asked you to sign an electronic pad without showing you exactly what you’re signing, you aren’t alone. CalMatters’ director of sociotechnical research, Alex Rosenblat, heard dozens of stories like this as she visited clinics across the country to see how hard it is for patients to do basic things […]

Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton are holding on to the lead in the latest poll ahead of the California governor election.  That’s according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which surveyed 986 likely voters earlier this month. Nearly a quarter of those surveyed (23%) said they’d vote for Becerra, followed by Hilton […]

Online college classes can be impersonal, isolating and disengaging. But with high demand among their students for online learning, California’s community colleges and universities are trying to find better online teaching practices. As CalMatters’ Adam Echelman explains, about 40% of all community college classes are online. Online courses enable students, especially those who are part- […]

With just a week until Election Day and only 8% of ballots returned so far, millions of California voters are still making up their minds about the election. But here at CalMatters, we listen, we don’t judge — so we have a last-minute voter guide to catch you up on what you need to know, […]

Scheduling note: WhatMatters is taking Memorial Day off and will return to your inboxes on Tuesday. Is artificial intelligence here to save us or destroy us all? Like you, we don’t yet. But we heard from some smart people at our Idea Festival Thursday in downtown Sacramento, where one AI proponent tried to assuage public […]