Aaron Hamlin - Independent Voter News

A Million-Dollar Snapshot of What Better Elections Look Like

The last year for The Center for Election Science was transformative. We received a grant from the Open Philanthropy Project of $600K, and then we helped win the first ballot

By Aaron Hamlin

March 14, 2019

5 Guidelines to Determine What Is and Isn't Good Voting Reform

If you’ve spent much time at The Center for Election Science website, then you probably know what a voting method is. A voting method is the method that voters

By Aaron Hamlin

October 8, 2018

OPINION: It's Time to Give Approval Voting a Chance

The voting method is extremely important and affects all parts of the election from who wins, how seriously candidates’ ideas are taken, and who you see on your ballot. Specifically,

By Aaron Hamlin

October 2, 2017

Does France Have Better Elections than US?

Runoffs get touted as a solution for vote splitting between similar candidates and overall better elections. Certainly, just about anything is better than the choose-one plurality voting that the

By Aaron Hamlin

May 5, 2017

The Illusion of Majority Rule in U.S. Elections

When someone wins an election with fewer than half the votes, what do you think? Many would call this winner undeserving. After all, they didn’t get a majority. You

By Aaron Hamlin

March 30, 2017

Honest Voters Had a Clear Preference in 2016

Voters aren’t always honest. But what would it look like if they were? We found out. Here’s how we got respondents to be honest. We asked them to

By Aaron Hamlin

January 9, 2017

New Research: Johnson, Stein Could Have Been Included in Debates under Approval Voting

We have our presidential election data! We’re going to be publishing multiple articles because there is just SO MUCH data. Here’s the gist of what we’ve done.

By Aaron Hamlin

December 16, 2016

A Blueprint To Better Presidential Elections

The 2016 presidential race has been called for Donald Trump. But Clinton won the national popular vote. This is the fifth time in history that the popular vote winner wasn’

By Aaron Hamlin

November 14, 2016

Maine’s Ranked Choice Voting: Not Perfect, But A Step Up from Plurality

Measure 5 puts ranked choice voting (RCV) on the ballot to be used statewide. RCV is worthwhile to support because it’s better than Maine’s current plurality voting system.

By Aaron Hamlin

October 27, 2016

Bloomberg's Decision Not To Run Is Democracy's Dead Canary

This article was originally published in edited form in the May 2016 edition of USA Today Magazine. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire 41 times over, decided

By Aaron Hamlin

June 3, 2016

Primaries: A Major Party Failure Is A Third Party Opportunity

Let’s be clear here. Major-party primaries in the US are absurd. Parties in most countries select their nominees privately and pay for it on their own dime. That’

By Aaron Hamlin

May 4, 2016

One Thing Is Certain: America Clearly Fails at Presidential Elections

Let’s be clear on something. The way we do primaries is bad. There’s the saying that imitation is the best form of flattery. No one is imitating us.

By Aaron Hamlin

March 1, 2016