Last week, I judged the CPSA poster session with Alison Smith (University of Toronto) and  David McGrane (University of Saskatchewan). I very much enjoyed the experience. I was so impressed with the quality of the presentations and the participants’ responses to our questions. Congrats to the winner, Rob Currie-Wood (Carleton), and runners-up Shuai Jin (Iowa) and Hannah Forsyth (Ontario Legislature intern). Keep up the great work! 

Following the French presidency debate, Agnès Gruda, Marc-Antoine Dilhac and I shared our thoughts at a round table moderated by Anne-Laure Mahé. The event was organized by CERIUM. 

Today, I attended the CÉRIUM and l'AÉSPÉIUM's Presidential Buffet to watch and discuss the live result of the first round of the French presidential election (with colleagues Philippe Faucher, Ruth Dassonneville, Henry Milner and George H. Ross).

On April 3, Global Affairs invited Jon Pammett and I to share our experiences and research in the area of elections with the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal. It was great to speak to Bolivia's Ambassador who is committed to democracy and making the democratic institutions in Bolivia work.

Last week, I had the privilege to judge The Political Science Students' Association's Political Science Games! The Political Science Games is an academic competition that pit 18 teams of McGill's best and brightest against one another in a two-part contest featuring a case competition on electoral reform and a European Council simulation

I spoke to LeDevoir about Québec Solidaire here

I like experimenting with different electoral systems to vote for issues outside of conventional elections as well. Several years ago, I helped organize a tool to inform the public about the various electoral systems that exist in the world to elect state leaders, and to collect data on voters’ behaviour under these systems. The study focused on the election of the next Pope. Last year, I was involved in two exciting projects. For Vote Foot, participants around the world were able to choose the best football player using 3 different voting systems. It was a very fun experience. You can check it out here: https://votefoot.org/. I conducted a similar study with Daniel Stockemer (Ottawa) at the time of the Eurovision contest in which people were invited to vote for the best song under two different voting systems. Elections are ubiquitous, they are not confined to politics, and there is much to learn about how people vote in different types of elections. 

Recently an article was published in Political Science that shows that I have the third-highest number of co-authors in the field. I am very pleased to have worked with so many intelligent people. You can read more about the study here and the Université of Montréal news article here.

On October 7 2016, Minister Stéphane Dion invited me to give a talk to Saint-Laurent residents on Electoral Reform. 

October 20, 2016: I organized a public forum on Electoral Reform in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. You can watch it here. 

October 19, 2016: Filip Kostelka and I wrote an article for IRPP/ Policy Options on how Canadians rate the state of our democracy . You can read it here.

October 17, 2016:  I wrote an article in The Globe and Mail explaining why proportional representation does not seem to produce greater voter happiness. You can read it here.