This is a guide for running an ACX Ballot Meetup, where a group of people come together to discuss the options on their local ballot and publish the endorsements.
The setup for this is done mostly the same way as with other kinds of meetups. If you want to see a retrospective of an event that was run this way, one is published here. While this guide assumes you're doing this as part of the Astral Codex Ten ballot meetups Scott sometimes runs, it could be run independently by basically any group; just drop the steps that mention coordinating with Scott.
Plan the event: Title the event (“Boston Ballot Meetup”) then pick a time and place, then invite people. If you're coordinating with ACX, there will be a post on the blog calling for organizers; let Scott know about your meetup there. There are extra considerations.
First, you want a location where people can pull out laptops and do research. You also want it quiet enough that you can talk as a group.
Second, be thoughtful about where you advertise it and what attendees you’re attracting. You want people who will apply careful thought to political questions, rather than just blind partisanship or similar.
Third, someone needs to make a list of the races and referenda to discuss at the meetup. Ballotpedia is one useful tool, as is your local LLM; ask it which ones are actually contested, which should narrow the field a lot. I suggest having a single google doc where each race and the options on the ballot are collected, ideally sorted loosely by what’s important or contested.
Fourth, it’s good to have a procedure for how the meetup will be run. If you’d like, feel free to use Boston’s 2026 procedure, either directly or just as inspiration.
Run the meetup: Be there first, explain what the goal of the meetup is, wind down and clean up once the meetup is over. If you’re using the ACX Boston 2026 procedure, there are the extra considerations:
Very early on, you’ll want to elect a moderator. Once there’s a moderator, they can keep pushing the meeting forward. You’ll also want to designate a notetaker, so that your group has something to refer back to later when writing the guide.
At some point ideally early on, get everyone’s email addresses or some other way to contact them.
As you discuss each race, I suggest having a timer running. It’s easy for discussions to drag on without reaching a conclusion. The moderate should make sure people don’t talk over each other and that everyone gets at least one turn to speak. Once you’re at time, vote on each race, mark down how the vote went, and designate someone from the majority side to write up the position later.
At the end, you’ll want to elect an editor. This is because the goal of the meetup is to have a written artifact other people can read, and the editor can take charge of that. Once there’s an editor, they can keep pushing the document forward.
Afterward: Thank people for coming, and give support to the editor. They probably will need your help contacting people.
The people who were designated to write up each position should do so and send it to the editor.
Your editor needs the contact information for all the people who were designated to write up the discussion. They may need to poke people. Once they have the writeups, they should format it into one document.
Send the document to Scott. If you already coordinated with ACX during step 1, he or someone he's working with will be in touch, but scott [at] slatestarcodex [dot] com.
This guide and those procedures do not, in and of themselves, endorse any candidate or position. Instead they're meant as tools that you and your group can use to come to your own conclusions and to share what you've learned. You might be surprised at how many people appreciate your guide.
If you run or participate in one of these, thank you for your time and effort. I believe democracy works best when people are involved and aware during the voting process.
This is a guide for running an ACX Ballot Meetup, where a group of people come together to discuss the options on their local ballot and publish the endorsements.
The setup for this is done mostly the same way as with other kinds of meetups. If you want to see a retrospective of an event that was run this way, one is published here. While this guide assumes you're doing this as part of the Astral Codex Ten ballot meetups Scott sometimes runs, it could be run independently by basically any group; just drop the steps that mention coordinating with Scott.
This guide and those procedures do not, in and of themselves, endorse any candidate or position. Instead they're meant as tools that you and your group can use to come to your own conclusions and to share what you've learned. You might be surprised at how many people appreciate your guide.
If you run or participate in one of these, thank you for your time and effort. I believe democracy works best when people are involved and aware during the voting process.