Oscar P

Video: How the Oscars Best Picture Winner Is Chosen Best picture is the only Oscar category decided by preferential ballot. Our reporter Marc Tracy explains how that works.

How the Oscars best picture winner is chosen - also works as an explainer of preferential voting.

www.nytimes.com/video/movies...

Consideration of Alternative Electoral Systems for the Los Angeles City Council A global city deserves a global council, one that transcends the practice of pitting racial groups against one another for representation and political power.

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.

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: A Discussion with Lee Drutman | Stanford Law School With the 2026 midterm elections fast approaching, both parties have begun to assemble their talking points and draw their respective political lines i

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...

Flag map of Latin America.

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...

*cars!

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)

Not electoral college directly, but this map on congressional apportionment from the Brennan Center has been circulating this week bsky.app/profile/mcpl...

Gerrymander Game: Interactive Electoral Districts Tool Learn how gerrymandering affects elections. Interactive game comparing single-member vs multi-member districts with real-time seat allocation results.

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

Temporary U.K. Parliament | Projects | Gensler A proposed restoration of the Palaces of Westminster would require total decantation of the building for an estimated six years. In response, Gensler...

There's a cool proposal to build a floating parliament where MPs can meet during the renovation (but I'm sure security would be a nightmare!)

Temporary U.K. Parliament | Projects | Gensler share.google/CeVO5LNR5YGL...

Understanding the Partisan Divide: How Demographics and Policy Views Shape Party Coalitions Differences between Democratic, Republican, and competitive districts are magnified by winner-take-all elections.

Lots more here - but could definitely use an update and expansion:
www.newamerica.org/political-re...

We also looked at policy views in the districts. Lots of different positions that are left inadequately represented by the parties and that could support a multi-party system.

Dems got most of their votes from ethnically diverse districts; Reps from predominantly white.

Competitive districts varied a lot: a big challenge for parties trying to capture them.

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.

Pathways to Minority Representation How do voters of color achieve representation through different electoral systems?

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...

Pathways to Minority Representation How do voters of color achieve representation through different electoral systems?

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...

Full report here:
www.newamerica.org/political-re...

Is the U.S. a gerontocracy? What an aging Congress has to do with the United States’ generational wealth gap.

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

www.marketplace.org/episode/2025...

I learned so much as a TA for her Intro CP class over several years. I'll fondly remember her theory of why TV shows set in parliamentary systems are better than those set in presidential systems and our shared enjoyment of wacky campaign ads from around the world.

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.

Electoral System Explorer - Interactive Voting & Gerrymandering Tool Explore how electoral systems work with this interactive tool. Draw districts, adjust party support, and compare majoritarian vs proportional results.

🚨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 🙌

@gelliottmorris.com's piece on what Americans actually want from parties is fascinating. It also (re-)produces a classic finding: Almost no one is in the "socially liberal but economically conservative" bucket, but those who are have very popular Substacks
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-just-l...

The hidden axis: the left-right spectrum has a non-ideology problem Most voters want a party that emphasizes cost of living issues and makes the world a better place. Few Americans think in solidly ideologically terms. "Moderates" are mostly non-ideological.

Outstanding analysis.

Now if only we had an electoral system that could reflect this!

substack.com/home/post/p-...

I've been raving about 'You Dreamed of Empires' since reading it