THE ELECTORAL
INNOVATION LAB
The Electoral Innovation Lab is a national project to build a science of data-driven democracy reform using math, law, and practical strategies for change.
For voters to have confidence in our democracy and be willing to participate, they must believe:
in the right to cast their ballot,
that their ballot will be counted and certified, without interference, and
their best interests will be fairly represented by the candidates they select.
Science and technology have been used to expand access to the ballot and improve procedures to count and certify our ballots. However, voters will not cast their ballots if they don't believe they are fairly represented by any of the candidates.
The Electoral Innovation Lab focuses on fair representation.
We strive to narrow the divide between voters and the government by repairing and strengthening three essential features of democracy:
We produce empirical articles, simulations, and online resources to inform and improve democracy reform efforts, such as:
countering gerrymandering/engaging in redistricting efforts
increasing authentic representation by opening up the field to candidates from all backgrounds to be on the ballot
presenting alternative voting methods to allow voters more opportunities to signal which candidates should proceed in the election process
providing tools in identifying communities of interest seeking improved representation and decreased polarization
identifying potential challenges regarding particular strategies and tactics in reform efforts and practical solutions to address emergent issues.
Integration of data analytics with policy research and legal scholarship will fuel the best democracy reform.
EIL applies ensemble modeling, cluster computing, and other computational techniques to cast-vote records and proprietary data sets. The data collected in our redistricting work fuels scholarship related to communities of interest, racial fairness, polarization, alternative voting rules, election integrity, and other issues relating to democracy.
EIL takes an engineering-like approach to democracy repair. We maintain no commercial interest in outcomes and our work is nonpartisan. We apply a science-backed, integrative approach to our projects, employing the following domains of expertise:
Data science (statistics, geospatial analysis, visualization)
Mathematics (computational modeling, algorithms, ensemble generation, complex systems analysis)
Law
Technology/Computer Science
Political Science
Cognitive and Social Science
We seek to create a practical framework for predicting consequences of reform and build a foundation to optimize reform in each state.
