prior probability

What is a caucus, you ask? It is a highly interactive and time-consuming method of voting. According to this excellent step-by-step explanation by Dominico Montanaro (via NPR), here is what is supposed to happen in each of Iowa’s 1765 electoral precincts on caucus night:

1. First, there’s a call to order, and a caucus chairman (or chairwoman) and secretary are elected.
2. Next, supporters are allowed to make the case for their candidates. (Note: Does this argument stage proceed in alphabetical order, or is a random selection method used, e.g. slips of paper with each candidate’s name chosen out of a hat?)
3. Caucus-goers then separate into clusters in different parts of the room for their candidate of choice.
4. After the groups are formed, the caucus chairman adds up how many supporters are in each cluster.
5. Each candidate has to meet a “viability threshold” of 15%, i.e. the number of people in each cluster has to be at least 15% of the total number of participants in the room.
6. If a candidate does not meet this critical threshold, that candidate’s supporters must then choose another candidate. As a result, this viability threshold introduces an additional layer of uncertainty into the outcome of the caucus. By way of example, if Andrew Yang does not meet the threshold, are Yang supporters more likely to switch over to Bernie Sanders or to Liz Warren?
7. During this re-caucusing stage, supporters of the remaining viable candidates try to sway the nonviable candidate’s voters to their side.
8. Once this re-caucusing stage is completed and all remaining candidates are deemed viable, the votes are tallied.
9. At this point, delegates and alternates are selected to attend county conventions, and then platform resolutions are introduced.
10. Lastly, the caucus is adjourned.

If you are in the Orlando area, skip Disney and visit the Orlando Museum of Art instead. OMA is featuring a special exhibit on The Florida Highwaymen, a remarkable group of Afro-American painters from Ft Pierce, Florida who revolutionized the world of landscape painting.

If you don’t speak Spanish, you are missing out! (Kobe had five championship rings; the sixth ring in this moving musical tribute refers to Kobe’s wedding ring.) Update: here is a decent English translation of Bad Bunny’s lyrics.

Today (1/28) is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, who made many contributions to natural law theory. In addition, Aquinas attempted to synthesize the ideas of Aristotle with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The YouTube video below contains a good introduction to Aquinas’ life and ideas:

“Consent” is an indispensable legal and moral concept, but why? Check out Larry Solum’s excellent legal theory blog post on the legal and moral significance of consent. (Professor Solum’s post popped up recently on my Twitter feed. For periodic legal theory updates, follow @lsolum on Twitter.) Without further ado, here is an excerpt from Professor Solum’s helpful overview of consent theory: “In general, there are two families of theories about the nature of consent. One theory is that consent is a mental state—either an affective state such as desire or a volitional state such as choice. The second theory is that consent is a performative—a speech act in which one person agrees to something by communicating with another person (or persons). Each of these two approaches to consent requires some additional explanation.” Read more here.

My copy of Volume 9 of The Journal of Law just arrived in the mail! Among other things, this eclectic volume contains my paper on “The Case for Bayesian Judges,” which is also available here, via SSRN.