Got a great idea for how to fix the electoral system? Now you can share your ideas with some of the reform community's leading researchers.
The newly created Electoral Reform Research Group put out a call this week for research papers "into how changes in electoral rules impact political participation, processes, partisanship, power, and policy outcomes."
Proposals are due Dec. 6 and selections will be discussed at a workshop in Washington in February. Chosen participants will receive a $500 honorarium and additional funds will be made available to run research programs based on the proposals.
The group is primarily focused on ranked-choice votingat this point, although its members acknowledge RCV is just one piece of the larger electoral reform debate.
"We're heavily focused on RCV because that's the live issue right now," said New America's Lee Drutman, one of the organizers of the research group. "It's getting a tremendous amount of momentum."
In addition to Drutman, this effort has been organized by Avi Green of the Scholars Strategy Network, Kevin Kosar of R Street Institute and Didi Kuo of Stanford University.
More details, including sample questions to guide proposal writing, are available here.
In terms of money flowing through the campaign-finance system, political action committees (PACs) are three times more active than candidates running for reelection or office. That is concentrated political power that leaves many congressional candidates running for reelection or office dependent on PAC support.
