Hello World: Introducing Ballot Lab

Author: Aaron Hamlin

Why Ballot Lab Exists

Ballot Lab exists to take the guesswork out of election reform, especially when it comes to voting methods. A voting method determines how voters express their preferences, how those preferences are counted, and how votes are translated into elected seats. The voting method is critical because it shapes who wins, who runs, and how voters behave. Ballot Lab may also examine adjacent reforms, but voting methods will remain central to our work.

It’s all the more critical when we use what the academic consensus would call the worst voting method there is: plurality or first-past-the-post voting. Our current choose-one voting method is the least expressive method. It’s also the most vulnerable to vote splitting, which is when similar candidates get their support divided.

Fortunately, many reformers are working to replace plurality with better alternatives. Indeed, it’s not difficult to do better than the status quo. The challenge is that the voting method space is complex. And advocacy organizations are sometimes free-spirited with their claims.

Advocacy organizations play an important role, but advocacy and independent evaluation are different jobs. Once an organization has committed to a reform, it can be difficult to reassess that position publicly. That’s especially true when funders, campaigns, and public messaging are already aligned around that committed reform.

What Ballot Lab Does

Ballot Lab fills research gaps, compares reform options, and turns existing evidence into practical recommendations. While the focus is on voting methods, we’ll also gradually expand to adjacent areas. Additionally, we see it as our responsibility to make our findings and recommendations easily understandable and clear. And we can do that while simultaneously highlighting gaps in the research.

Experimental research is obviously valuable, but we’ve seen that study quality varies widely. Research can also take years to move from design to publication. This delay limits the usefulness of the research needed for policy decisions today.

Our experimental research entails multiple steps. We create a study prospectus, write out the methodology, and have it peer reviewed (using Unjournal). We then preregister the methodology before collecting data. After we write up the study, we do an additional round of peer review before immediate publication on the Ballot Lab site with links to sources and data. We may apply for publication through a journal, but it’s not necessary and won’t delay us from sharing our findings. We’ve already done two rounds of peer review at that point, so integrity isn’t an issue. This gives decision-makers access to reviewed, transparent research without waiting years for a traditional publication cycle.

Exploratory research requires more flexibility because some questions aren’t yet developed enough for an experimental design. For example, if existing proportionality metrics don’t capture what we need to know about multi-winner systems, we’ll need to develop and test better measurement tools. That exploratory work can then support better-designed experimental studies.

Our reports and recommendations will synthesize existing literature, public data, election results, simulations, and new research where needed. It’s still early for us, and so we’re exploring other ways we can have an impact in the space. We’re excited for what’s to come!

Who Ballot Lab Serves

Ballot Lab serves policymakers, advocates, philanthropists, journalists, researchers, and voters who need to evaluate election reforms. Our goal is to make their work easier by clearly answering practical questions like:

Who Are We?

Ballot Lab combines academic expertise with practical reform experience. Our board and advisors include people who have worked on electoral reform, voting theory, experimental design, multi-winner systems, and measurement. Many have made foundational contributions to the field, like Steven Brams’ work on approval voting. Others, including Herrade Igersheim and Jean-François Laslier, have published empirical approaches for comparing voting methods.

My own work sits at the intersection of research and reform. I’ve built multiple organizations from scratch and helped implement approval voting in Fargo, North Dakota, and St. Louis, Missouri. Academically, my focus has been on metrics for evaluating voting methods in falsifiable ways, including work with Herrade Igersheim and Jean-François Laslier.

What to Expect

You can expect more independent research and reports. There’s much more to understand and build upon in the space of voting methods. We’re excited to go on that journey and share our findings.

In this Articles section in particular, we’ll share updates about Ballot Lab. When we publish research, release reports, test new ideas, or respond to important developments in the field, we’ll write about it here and link to the work. We’ll also highlight the strong work by others in the field.

Also, because we recognize this field can be challenging, we’ll publish some articles explaining some of the fundamentals of voting methods and other reforms. We believe part of our job is helping you to understand the space so you can make the most informed decisions possible.

Thank you for joining us on this journey!

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Cite This Article

APA: Hamlin, A. (2026). Hello world: Introducing Ballot Lab. Ballot Lab. https://ballotlab.org/hello-world/

MLA: Hamlin, Aaron. “Hello World: Introducing Ballot Lab.” Ballot Lab, 27 Apr. 2026, https://ballotlab.org/hello-world/.

Chicago: Hamlin, Aaron. “Hello World: Introducing Ballot Lab.” Ballot Lab, April 27, 2026. https://ballotlab.org/hello-world/.