I hadn’t been aware of this 2019 paper in Legislative Studies Quarterly by David Cotrell. The piece itself is behind a paywall. Here’s the abstract: Recent research has leveraged computer simulations to identify the effect of gerrymandering on partisan… Continue reading

From Fair Vote: A record 23 cities in Utah passed ranked choice voting ordinances for elections in 2021, more than doubling the number of elections that will allow voters to rank mayoral candidates. Altogether, with these added cities, 53 jurisdictions… Continue reading

For this race, Londoners used an RCV system, in which they were permitted to rank their first and second choices. But a terrible, confusing ballot design led a significant number of voters to cast a first choice for two different… Continue reading

This story is out of Colorado, from the CPR News. Proponents assert that there are good government reasons for these changes. But the story notes that the vote in committee to report out this bill was on a straight… Continue reading

Given the intense politics within Puerto Rico over statehood v. commonwealth status, it is rare to find journalistic stories that capture well the positions in this debate. This long essay from Ben Jacobs at the DC Examiner is one of… Continue reading

That’s an arresting line from this Matt Bai piece on the Republican Party. I consider changing the structure of primaries one of the more important political reform agenda items. See this good report from Unite America on the topic also.… Continue reading

From the Washington Post: The contest is quickly becoming a free-for-all. Following Cheney’s impeachment vote, the state party censured her, and several Wyoming politicians filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to challenge her. The most credible among them… Continue reading

This story caught my eye: “NY AG finds nearly 82% of net neutrality comments to the FCC were fake”: “The OAG found that millions of fake comments were submitted through a secret campaign, funded by the country’s largest broadband companies,… Continue reading

In my recent Real Clear Politics essay, I argued that putting more weight on competitive districts in the redistricting process would be one means of mitigating the forces of political extremism. As I said when I first put forward… Continue reading

In Real Clear Politics, I published a longish essay arguing that one direction political reform should take to limit the forces of extremism in our politics is the creation of more competitive election districts. I will blog about the analysis… Continue reading

For its special election to fill a vacant House seat, Texas used the top-two primary structure currently used more generally in CA and WA. There were 23 candidates who ran, and since no one is going to win an outright… Continue reading

From the Washington Post: The race for second place is on.The seven Republicans running for Virginia governor are making their final appeals to the record 53,000 delegates who’ve signed up to vote in their party’s May 8 nominating convention.Because… Continue reading

From The Economist, subtitle: “The Mormon right has not followed white evangelicals’ descent into grievance politics” ONE OF THE few uplifting notes of last year’s election season was struck by the candidates for Utah’s governorship. “Win or lose, in… Continue reading

Polling questions about the minimum wage perform better when using language similar to the Florida minimum wage ballot measureFraming the Raise The Wage Act as a $9.50 an hour wage that increases by $1.50 each year, as opposed to simply… Continue reading