"the idea that majority-minority districts will concentrate power among people whose views are similar because of their shared ethnicity has never held up in a community as diverse as ours. Just ask a Latino Republican in California or a Democrat in Florida." democracyjournal.org/arguments/th...

Ezra Klein explains why he supports proportional representation: With #ProportionalRepresentation, “it matters whether you appeal to people who are skeptical. It creates competition for voters who are currently disenfranchised," like California Republicans or Texas Dems.

@leedrutman.bsky.social on the Ezra Klein show talking all things gerrymandering and proportional representation www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/o...

In this special deep dive episode of the Strength In Numbers podcast, I talk with voting and democracy expert Lee Drutman, who makes a good case for why you should support proportional representation and fusion voting! In pod feeds now www.gelliottmorris.com/p/deep-dive-...

How could alternative electoral systems increase representation for voters of color? @oscarp.bsky.social and @mlatner.bsky.social write about how proportional representation could facilitate minority representation: houstoninstitute.substack.com/p/pathways-t... @houstoninstitute.bsky.social

The UK is becoming a lab of electoral systems. Here @simonhix.bsky.social compares Scotland's mixed-member proportional system with the new Welsh party-list system. substack.com/home/post/p-...

That New Zealand basically got a mixed-member proportional system by accident was one of my favorite discoveries while researching these systems. The other is that if there is a tie in an election in Monaco, the older candidate wins the race.

And if you want to learn more about mixed-member systems: www.newamerica.org/insights/mix...

It's an exciting day for electoral systems nerds! Wales is switching from mixed-member proportional to closed-list PR, each district electing 6 members allocated with D'Hondt. Here's a really cool simulator of how the new system works by @jaclarner.bsky.social jaclarner.github.io/senedd_ethol...

Party building is hard. Like any organization, a political party has to figure out how to scale up while remaining cohesive. In a new report exploring the model of the Working Families Party, Tabatha Abu El-Haj makes the case for associational party building: www.newamerica.org/insights/ass...

Yes. This new article by @oscarp.bsky.social and team gives a tight summary of the challenges. bsky.app/profile/jack...

Hey #edusky / #datasky: I'm hiring! If you're a data person who cares about education equity, social equality, and working toward a less divided America, check it out! newamerica.applytojob.com/apply/LVDvuZ... #datajobs #edjobs #edpolicy

This is the most useful thing a person today could read on MMP. Extensive, clear explanation of basic mechanics, design variations, downstream effects, etc. @alexkeena.bsky.social, @oscarp.bsky.social, and Natasha Romero Moskala. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Our paper on mixed-member systems and the US House is out on first view! These systems are often called the "best of both worlds" but they are complex & confusing. We hope the paper clarifies concepts & starts more discussions on mixed-member reforms in the US journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

New version of my R package {democracyData} available: github.com/xmarquez/dem...

This is a recession indicator. "Why ‘Ring My Bell’ By Anita Ward Is Making People Feel Lucky" www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

"[Japanese municipalities] that elect younger mayors increase spending on child welfare, especially through long-term investments in infrastructure." www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

We often ask who wins elections. But who decides to run? New @electoralstudies.bsky.social w/@mhayes.bsky.social: Multi-member districts ⬆️ Black candidate emergence—and political empowerment matters. We revisit assumptions about US electoral design and show who enters the pipeline—not just who wins.

this resonates with my phd work showing that campaigns in Mexico avoided the topic of criminal violence, especially where it was worse

"incumbents, knowing how hard problems like public service quality are to solve, proactively “play defense” to keep those issues off the electoral agenda." journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

"exposure to multimember district/PR increased women’s commitment to voting and decreased both men’s and women’s support for particularistic campaign appeals in this context." (context: clientelistic democracies) doi.org/10.1017/s000...

"Politics transformed? Electoral competition under ranked choice voting" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The recent election in Baden-Württemberg resulted in the CDU winning 14 district seats in excess of its proportional entitlement (overhangs). Here I review the basic ways that MMP can handle such situations. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2026/03/12/t...

i thought these were regression discontinuity plots

How the Oscars best picture winner is chosen - also works as an explainer of preferential voting. www.nytimes.com/video/movies...

What electoral system would be better for LA? Great overview of some of the options - and really cool comparisons to other city councils. houstoninstitute.substack.com/p/considerat...

Huh. That's a lot easier than this method.

For Bay Area folks, I'll be at Stanford Law School talking about Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop next week: law.stanford.edu/event/breaki...

Let’s Hype that Hypothesis! Elena Barham,Sarah Zukerman Daly, @juliangerez.com,John Marshall, and Oscar Pocasangre hypothesize that #vaccine distribution in #Latin#America strengthens #trust in #foreign#governments. Read how these favorable opinions may impact foreign policy: doi.org/10.1353/wp.2...

Finally got to take the new acela and it's... fine! It's sleek and has better connections between cats. Biggest gripes are that the cafe car doesn't have tables anymore, there are no overhead reading lights, and it's not faster!!

Some of my favorite ones were: Economics of Aging Art and Architecture of Mesoamerica Politics and Violence through Latin American Theater The Modern Unconscious (though so many of the papers we read in this psyc class haven't replicated) Economics of Developing Countries (my intro to RCTs class)

Proportional representation systems can't be gerrymandered. Don't believe me? Give it a try! I made a gerrymandering simulator with an imaginary state under either single-member districts or multi-member proportional districts. How much can YOU gerrymander? claude.ai/public/artif...

The Dynamic Democracy data is an invaluable resource, and now easily accessible here: dynamicdemocracy.shinyapps.io/ShinyApp/

A useful guide to recreating in ggplot2 the style of the figures from one of my reports #rstats

We wrote about this in 2022 - and the divergence seems to have continued since. We wanted to see what types of districts each party represented in 2020/2022, what competitive districts looked like, and what that means for the coalitions parties need to win in a winner-take-all system.

Majoritarian electoral systems offer very limited pathways for minority representation and the Supreme Court may soon block one of the most crucial ones. What are the alternatives? Mike Latner and I take on this question in this piece ⬇️ houstoninstitute.substack.com/p/pathways-t...

How do minority groups achieve representation under different electoral systems? In this explainer written with Mike Latner, we describe the pathways to representation under majoritarian/plurality systems, ranking systems & proportional systems. houstoninstitute.substack.com/p/pathways-t...

Very cool to see our report on the age divide referenced in the latest @marketplace.org podcast: www.marketplace.org/episode/2025...

I'm so deeply saddened by the passing of Kimuli. She was an incisive scholar of comparative politics, generous with her advice and feedback, and had the most infectious of laughs. fas.columbia.edu/news/memoria...

I wrote about some of the research on this here - but as Jack points out, it's important to note that context matters and electoral institutions are not determinative. www.newamerica.org/political-re...

I thought death by lightning was great, but still annoyed that one politician from NY in the show said he liked the cherry blossoms in DC when cherry blossoms didn't arrive to DC until 1912.

🚨New genAI teaching material: an Electoral System Explorer built with Claude. It lets students see how votes translate to seats under different electoral systems. Try it here: claude.ai/public/artif.... Feedback, as always, is very much appreciated! #poliski

I deactivated instagram back in May and haven't looked back since 🙌

Outstanding analysis. Now if only we had an electoral system that could reflect this! substack.com/home/post/p-...

The application for the @newamerica.org fellows program is now open: www.newamerica.org/fellows/abou...