Jack Santucci
@jacksantucci
Political scientist
Why it’s important to separately consider proportional representation and multiparty politics. voteguy.com/2025/03/15/pro…
In NYC's charged mayoral race, many saw Zohran Mamdani's win as validation for ranked choice voting. In reality, “In this case, RCV didn’t mitigate polarization. It arguably masked it.” Read the op-ed from our executive director, @SamOlikerF in @thehill: thehill.com/opinion/campai…
Historically interesting
To win in 2028, Democrats need a message on corruption tinyurl.com/2chaawhu
Please see my "Civic Education is Not Enough" in Then Again! leetrepanier.substack.com/p/civic-educat…
Note that the first sentence contradicts the mediation-free theory of politics on which this reform was sold for years, and which still appears in much literature on the topic.
Voters largely followed candidate cues. Mamdani encouraged supporters to rank other candidates too. Cuomo did not. ➡️91% of voters who ranked Mamdani 1st ranked at least one other candidate ➡️55% of voters who ranked Cuomo 1st ranked at least one other candidate
Our new piece in @Nature discussing the implications of their new transformative transparent peer review policy with @rmichaelalvarez @CaltechLCSSP and Danny Ebanks @Harvard nature.com/articles/d4158… @Gates_Cambridge @Cambridge_Uni @Caltech
Re: using CVRs to assess the social-choice properties of this/that voting system. This doesn’t work because the CVR is endogenous to party competition, campaign effects, voting heuristics, etc.
I like this essay. The dynamic to which it points is more important than its headline. wsj.com/politics/elect…
Condorcet Voting and the Cornyn-Paxton Race open.substack.com/pub/edwardbfol…
Boom there you go. Pew ends the debate over weighting on past vote pewresearch.org/decoded/2025/0…
Socialism and the New York City election open.substack.com/pub/jacksantuc…
Interesting
The ideological effect of RCV is smaller than the shifts that >99% of non-RCV cities naturally saw from 2012 to 2020. *At most*, the effect size of RCV is still below the average shift in non-RCV cities b/w 2012 and 2020. These are very small effects!
This is a good null-effects paper. But note. Scholars also find null effects for PR adoption in cross-national samples. The way in which electoral reform happens often is more important than the reform itself.
From the lastest issue of the QJPS, "The Effects of Ranked Choice Voting on Substantive Representation" by @avishwanath28. A thread.
Available now at our website: Shikano, S., Herron , E.S. Risk diversification and vote decisions in mixed-member electoral systems. Public Choice (2025). doi.org/10.1007/s11127…