Great story by Nate Cohn in the New York Times on different demographic estimates of the electorate, features extensive quotes from election science scholars Michael McDonald and Bernard Fraga. Perhaps we can even claim Yair Ghitza as a fellow traveller?  

Senate bill 8582, introduced 11/18/2015 in the New York legislature, would provide for early in-person voting in the Empire State.

I’ve talked to NY state legislators before, but not about this legislation.  It does contain some useful provisions that I often recommend, including:

• A population based floor (but no ceiling) on the number of early voting locations
• Allows for early voting “vote centers” in the City of New York (not county based)
• An early voting period that includes two weekends and requires some Saturday and Sunday voting, and requires at least one early voting location in each county to stay open until 8 in the evening

Early voting locations are also subject to other location provisions, assuring that not just numbers, but accessibility will be taken into account:

POLLING PLACES FOR EARLY VOTING SHALL BE LOCATED TO ENSURE, TO THE
   11  EXTENT PRACTICABLE, THAT ELIGIBLE VOTERS HAVE ADEQUATE EQUITABLE ACCESS,
   12  TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION POPULATION DENSITY, TRAVEL TIME TO THE POLLING
   13  PLACE,  PROXIMITY  TO  OTHER  LOCATIONS  OR COMMONLY USED TRANSPORTATION
   14  ROUTES AND SUCH OTHER FACTORS THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS OF  THE  COUNTY  OR
   15  THE  CITY OF NEW YORK DEEMS APPROPRIATE.

An excellent new podcast as part of Rick Hasen’s Election Law Blog (ELB) series features Prof. Nathan Persily addressing the question “can the Supreme Court handle social science?”  Persily addresses the question in light of recent litigation over campaign finance and voter identification.

Persily is well-known in the election reform community; for the broader political science community, Persily received his PhD in Political Science from Berkeley, his JD from Stanford, and served as research director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.  Many may be familiar with him from his recent edited volume on Cambridge Solutions to Political Polarization in America.

Any political scientist who is interested in how the Court and the legal community views our scholarship, and more generally in how social science can be made more comprehensible and impactful in the policy community, would do well to listen to this short 30 minute podcast.

The Montana field experiment has been deemed a campaign finance violation by the chief regulator in Montana.

I’m not sure any other outcome was expected, politically, and I’m also not sure this will stand up legally (or be pursued at all by the state attorney–they may just leave this statement of a violation as the appropriate slap on the wrist).

But as I wrote back when the controversy erupted, the bigger concern for academia is how we got here at all.

This has sparked a lot of discussion within academia, including a number of panels at MPSA and the CASBS, with more to come (including a symposium in PS if I can get my act together!).  The most positive outcome may be a bit of circumspection and modesty among academic researchers.