A response to Benjamin Studebaker — Benjamin Studebaker recently wrote in Current Affairs that “Proportional Representation Is a Terrible Idea That The Left Should Not Embrace”. He’s categorically and emphatically mistaken. #ProRep is a great idea, and badly needed as a US reform. The biggest overarching flaw in the article is its one-sided analysis, highlighting potential…

This is #2 in a series of articles about developing quality measures for voting methods — measures that, I argue, will demonstrate that most proportional methods are clearly superior to any nonproportional one. In my recent article, “Who put you in charge?”, I sketched a way to measure an individual…

Measuring retrospective voter power — “Who put you in charge?” is not just a common rhetorical question. It’s at the heart of political theory. The definition of a democracy is that the leaders are chosen by the people; so one step in telling how democratic a given system is, is measuring who elected whom. In…

This is an article about why I use the terms I do when discussing voting theory. I may, in the future, add more sections, but if I do, I’ll note changes and dates. “Voting theory” and “election science” are synonyms These are both terms for the field as a whole. I say “electoral system”, but I think “voting method” What is the subject matter for voting…

In June 2019, I published Goodbye, Medium, in which I said I would not participate in the two-tier promotion system Medium had then, in which free content was fundamentally less discoverable than paywalled content. But in October 2020, Medium changed this policy: All posts are now eligible for further distribution…

Profit off my writing? Fine. Restrict it? Nope. This article is just to say that I will not be writing further articles on Medium until there is a way to write something that is both: Visible to anyone, including non-subscribers, at some publicly-searchable URL. Eligible for recommendation and curation, like other premium Medium content, at some URL. These…

Your government is in crisis. This was predictable. And there’s hope. — (paywalled version here) Since you’re reading this in English, you probably live in a country in deep political crisis. Your governing political party probably exercises disproportionate power despite being supported by a minority, and have dropped all pretense of governing in the interests of anyone but that minority. …

This is an open letter to Ayanna Pressley, who represents me in Congress. Overall, I am proud to have such an outstanding representative as you. As you know, with a hostile Senate, the House of Representatives mostly can’t do your main job, passing laws. So for now, your important work…

How better voting methods could lead to a better nominee — In early 2016, many thought Trump couldn’t possibly win the Republican primary. Even as he came a close second in Iowa and then won in New Hampshire and South Carolina, polls showed that a majority of Republican voters disapproved of him and had several other candidates they preferred. …