Ozean Political Blog
A political blog about digital media, data, research and consulting.
How to use Digital Advocacy to Change Minds
"How does one change someone's mind?" As in the past, some of the best blog topics come from friends via email. This question, "How does one change someone's mind?" was asked in the context of the current COVID debate. However, it spurred a much longer, deeper...
Affective Partisanship – Why do you hate me?
I hope you had a great 4th of July. As a true nerd, I spent some time looking at American National Election Studies (ANES) data. For those unfamiliar with the data, it began at the University of Michigan and now is a jointly done with Stanford. The survey research...
Ranked Choice Voting – a final verdict and a “Winner”
My flirtation with Ranked Choice Voting has ended as many of my flirtations end: bewildered and alone with my thoughts. As I disclosed early in the process, I went into this project thinking the United States isn't ready for RCV, and this exercise and the recent...
Ranked Choice Voting – I am starting over!
As with some projects, and especially some coding projects, it is better to shut the lap - top and go for a walk. Then start all over. That is where I find myself now. I was doing some additional research in how to account for ties: There are three ways - three...
Ranked Choice Voting – I am about to give up
I am frustrated. What should have been an easy 1-2-3 project has turned into a mess. It seems by offering people ranking, people are getting to the point of "throwing" away their votes - even may be enjoying it. Just when I think we are making progress towards...
Ranked Choice Voting – NOW WHAT
WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM! I thought this was going to be easy....it is not. It is complicated and it goes back to the old saying "those who county the votes....." Here is the challenge, again suppose to be easy....you eliminate the bottom vote getter and...
Ranked Choice Voting – Round 1
Round 1 - Ice Cream And the winner is...... Nobody. yet. If you are flow charting out the tabulation, here are the easy as 1-2-3 steps: Step 1 - is someone over 50%+1 (Y - declare winner, N - goto Step 2) Step 2 - eliminate the lowest vote getter and reassign votes. ...
Ranked Choice Voting – an adventure
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and Ice CreamWith the pending Democrat primary race for Mayor in NYC using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), we are thinking through the process of how to properly poll Rank Choice Voting and how to write the back-end code to do the analysis. What...
So, You Want to Run As an Independent or Third-Party Candidate?
So, you want to run as a third party or independent? Best of Luck! For whatever reason, one of the most read blog posts on this website is an explanation of why third parties don’t win. Long story short – the deck is completely stacked against them. But like any good...
Science Friday: Inoculation Theory or How to Protect Yourself From Political Attack
Inoculation Theory In the early 1960, William McGuire began to build the theory of inoculation in and around communication and persuasion. The theory has since been studied extensively with nuances offered (a large debt to Michael Pfau). The communication theory uses...
How Do Non-partisan Elections Remove Partisanship? hint: They do NOT!
We have previously explored the hyper-partisanship and polarization that exists in America. A past client of mine disagreed with my bleak assessment and said reform is "easy" - just make all races non-partisan and THEN the campaigns will be about character and not...
Science Friday: Evangelical Support for Trump and Church Attendance
Science Friday: Evangelical Support for Trump and Church Attendance To the average politico, it is no surprise that 80% of self-identified white evangelical voters supported Donald Trump in 2016 - a trend that continued in 2020 where exit polls showed 76-81% of the...