EM-list
The election-methods mailing list (or the EM-list) is a mailing list that was started in 1996 and continues to host discussions with electoral system experts and activists.
- Official website: https://electorama.com/em/
- Subscription information: http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com
- Archives (2015 and later): http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/
- Archives (1996 through 2018): https://electorama.com/em/archive.html
Purpose[edit | edit source]
The list is for discussion of the nitty-gritty details of single-winner election reform, the relative merits of different proportional representation systems, and the technical underpinnings of all election methods. "election-methods-list" discussions tend to be technical in nature (or at least, very laden with jargon), with the ultimate goal of providing recommendations and educational material to the electoral reform movement.
History[edit | edit source]
1996 through 2003[edit | edit source]
The list was started in 1996 by Rob Lanphier.[1][2]. It was started as an unofficial spinoff to the "ER-list", which was more concerned about promoting single-winner STV than diving into the weeds about the theory of electoral systems.
During its first few years, it was on eskimo.com, and was originally a "Majordomo" list.
2003 until today[edit | edit source]
In 2003, the list moved to the newly-formed Electorama.com website on Dreamhost, and transitioned to becoming a GNU Mailman-based mailing list.[3] EM-list remains hosted on Dreamhost, but the old "Electowiki" wiki, hosted on Dreamhost was copied the Miraheze infrastructure in 2018 and rebranded "electowiki" (with a lowercase "e"). The old "Electowiki" wiki is still running to serve up history of articles written prior to 2018.
The archives and the latest subscription information for EM-list can be found at:
25th Birthday[edit | edit source]
- main article: EM25
The 25th Birthday of the EM-list happened on Monday, February 15. That's when User:RobLa sent the first email to the list.[1]
Future[edit | edit source]
This section contains a couple of items about the future of the EM-list (as of February 2021):
C4ES Election Theory Forum[edit | edit source]
The C4ES Election-Theory Forum was rumored to be shutting down as early as June 2020.[4] However, as of this writing in February 2021, it is still appears to be operational.[5]
Links[edit | edit source]
- ↑ a b First message to the new EM-list on February 15, 1996: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1996-February/065327.html
- ↑ Rob Lanphier is "User:RobLa" on this wiki
- ↑ [EM] election-methods list move -- Rob Lanphier, 2003 March 4
- ↑ Announcement from the Center for Election Science: https://forum.electionscience.org/t/alternatives-to-the-ces-forum/699 (author: Felix Sargent, Chair of C4ES)
- ↑ "Gambling to Select for Robustly Functional Voting Algorithms". Voting Methods Forum. 2021-02-05. Retrieved 2021-02-12.