The Center for Election Science could easily make efficient use of greater than $50M a year with infrastructure and ballot initiatives. We’ve already laid out a plan on how we would spend it. We could also potentially build towards some hyper-aggressive $100M years by including lobbying in the remaining states that don’t allow ballot initiatives. In any case, we are woefully underfunded relative to our goals and could at the very least surpass the $50M threshold in a couple of years with sufficient funding. If even greater funding were available, we could build in lobbying following more state-level wins.
For clarity, our lack of funding has already cost us approval voting campaign opportunities and is a big issue for us.
Okay, but I’m not persuaded that the Center for Election Science is scientific. I think it should be called “The Center for Approval Voting (especially the single-winner district kind)™”
I studied electoral systems for a school project and reached very different conclusions, for instance: that all single-winner-district systems are inherently non-proportional and subject to gerrymandering. I went so far as to design my own system (I suppose its merits are debatable — but never debated). In emails from the CES I see none of the insights I gained in my school project — nothing about criteria for evaluating voting systems, no theories about what the goals of a voting system should be and how to achieve them… except narrowly-crafted articles focused on crowning Approval Voting the winner, usually without surveying alternatives.
Quite the contrary, CES newsletters read more like the many political propaganda emails from which I have long since unsubscribed.
I agree that maybe this is the best way to achieve your Approval Voting goals. Most political emails simply tell people what to believe and what to vote for, not bothering with evidence or balance. It’s probably done this way because it works. But don’t call it “science”, okay?
Edit: Downvotes are not counterarguments. If you can’t say why I’m wrong, maybe I’m not wrong.
The Center for Election Science could easily make efficient use of greater than $50M a year with infrastructure and ballot initiatives. We’ve already laid out a plan on how we would spend it. We could also potentially build towards some hyper-aggressive $100M years by including lobbying in the remaining states that don’t allow ballot initiatives. In any case, we are woefully underfunded relative to our goals and could at the very least surpass the $50M threshold in a couple of years with sufficient funding. If even greater funding were available, we could build in lobbying following more state-level wins.
For clarity, our lack of funding has already cost us approval voting campaign opportunities and is a big issue for us.
Okay, but I’m not persuaded that the Center for Election Science is scientific. I think it should be called “The Center for Approval Voting (especially the single-winner district kind)™”
I studied electoral systems for a school project and reached very different conclusions, for instance: that all single-winner-district systems are inherently non-proportional and subject to gerrymandering. I went so far as to design my own system (I suppose its merits are debatable — but never debated). In emails from the CES I see none of the insights I gained in my school project — nothing about criteria for evaluating voting systems, no theories about what the goals of a voting system should be and how to achieve them… except narrowly-crafted articles focused on crowning Approval Voting the winner, usually without surveying alternatives.
Quite the contrary, CES newsletters read more like the many political propaganda emails from which I have long since unsubscribed.
I agree that maybe this is the best way to achieve your Approval Voting goals. Most political emails simply tell people what to believe and what to vote for, not bothering with evidence or balance. It’s probably done this way because it works. But don’t call it “science”, okay?
Edit: Downvotes are not counterarguments. If you can’t say why I’m wrong, maybe I’m not wrong.