3 ms·

some twitter extracts https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1313872314245808128 https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1313872314245808128

• raverbashing 6y ago
  That's interesting. Something that catches my eye: > The ICO found Cambridge had more or less the same tech in the 2016 campaign that competitors did—and even within the company, staff worried that Nix & Co. were exaggerating CA’s “impact and influence.” > All those things you read about the thousands of data points CA had on American voters? Most of it was commercially available to anyone with the $. Points to larger issues of data & privacy but not something unique to CA.
  • vkou 6y ago
    The parties themselves own more voter information in their datasets than CA ever dreamed of. It's one of the reasons for why third parties can't break into the American system - it's hard to compete without access to a curated-over-decades dataset of likely voters, swing voters, potential volunteers, single-issue voters, etc, etc.
    • bleepblorp 6y ago
      The US is a two party system[0] because it uses first past the post elections. First past the post electoral systems can't support more than two viable parties. [0] Nominally. In practice, the commonality of ideas between elected Democrats and Republicans, combined with structural advantages that give the GOP a disproportionate hold on power, mean that the US is more of a 1.5 party system.