fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Scrum: A Brief History of a Long-Lived Hype
By: Gunther Verheyen
Tags: Scrum, Scrum Guide, History, Definition

Scrum has been around for a while, they say. The Scrum Guide holds the definition of Scrum, they say. The first, official version of the Scrum Guide was released in February 2010. So, how was Scrum defined before 2010 then? How did its definition evolve before and after 2010 and become the framework that we know today? What else happened along the road to the way that Scrum is defined and represented?

In the paper “Scrum: A Brief History of a Long-Lived Hype” I have described what changed to the definition and representation of Scrum over time, before and after the creation of the Scrum Guide. It shows how Scrum evolved into the framework that we know today since its first formal introduction in 1995. Because a touch of historical awareness is more than helpful in understanding Scrum and caring for the future of Scrum.

I looked for sources that are not just credible in terms of authorship but also offer regular enough check points. In the end, the sources I used for describing the evolutions of the definition of Scrum are:

The paper “SCRUM Software Development Process” by Ken Schwaber (1995, 1996)

The paper “SCRUM: An extension pattern language for hyperproductive software development” by Mike Beedle, Martine Devos, Yonat Sharon, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (1999)

The book “Agile Software Development with Scrum” by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle (2002)

The book “Agile Project Management with Scrum” by Ken Schwaber (2004)

The book “The Enterprise and Scrum” by Ken Schwaber (2007)

“The Scrum Guide” by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (2009, 2010)

“The Scrum Guide” by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (2011, 2013, 2016, 2017)

“The Scrum Guide” by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (2020)

For every source I have described the same three topics to show what Scrum consisted of at the time (regardless the different terms used), what the ‘definition’ of Scrum was at the time:

Roles, responsibilities, accountabilities Controls, deliverables, artifacts Phases, meetings, time-boxes, events

For every source I have included a graphical representation of Scrum or of a Sprint that was either taken from the source directly, either from an alternative source of the same period.

Finally, I have shared my thoughts and observations on the changes to the definition of Scrum for every source. Obviously, they represent what I deem noticeable. They hold no judgement, directly nor indirectly.

To complete the paper I have listed some important landmarks in the history of Scrum and included some personal musings on the topic of “ Scrum and the Desire for Universal Truths” (and what the Scrum Guide was not created for).

I hope you will enjoy reading the paper. I hope it will help you grow a deeper understanding of Scrum. I hope it will help you shape your Scrum to get the most from it. I hope it will help you create better products with Scrum while humanizing your workplace.

Take care

Gunther Verheyen

independent Scrum Caretaker
Extraindo Valor de Métricas Ágeis
By: Marcos Xavier
Tags: Agile Teams, Mindset Ágil, Agile Metrics, Agile, Scrum

Passionate about agility and people development. Helping teams and organizations working better together.
Product Vision in an Agile Environment
Tags: Product Management, Agile, Scrum, Digital Product, Product Vision

In this episode, we are going to talk about Product Vision in an Agile Environment.

In the next episode: 2 biggest mistakes Product Owners make regarding Product Vision.

If you do not have your product yet, No problem, we will create your first sweet as a honey digital product together in this Product Management Series.

But first, you have to learn what types of products have the potential to produce high profits and why we choose digital products.

In this Product Management course, we are going to build effective things together.

You will learn how to choose a trending niche for your Product and how to Build an Effective Product step-by-step.

I will also show you the Secret Formula of Success and the free resources that we will use to build your first product.

You will learn to write down Powerful Product Description. After that, it is your turn to create your first digital product.

I will add to this my Agile and Scrum knowledge as well… You can also jump in right away
Making Hard Decisions about Priority with a Pyramid Backlog
By: Philip Rogers
Tags: Product Prioritization, Product, Product Management, Agile, Scrum

Pyramid Backlog, from Jimmy Janlén’s book Visualization Examples: Toolbox for the Agile Coach

Introduction

The Pyramid Backlog is a visual prioritization tool that helps force hard decisions on the most important things to work on, at the Product Backlog level. Agile Coach Jimmy Janlén describes the technique in his book Visualization Examples: Toolbox for the Agile Coach.

When To Use It

When A Product Owner/a team are having difficulty narrowing the focus down to a reasonably small number of items to work on.

Prerequisites

A list of items that need to be prioritized (work items in a Product Backlog)

Willingness to keep the list of things to be prioritized reasonably small (do NOT attempt to prioritize everything in the Product Backlog, as that will likely be wasted effort, because some of those things you might NEVER work on)

How does it work?

1. Make sure there is agreement on the list of things to be prioritized, and as noted above, be sure to keep the number of items reasonably small

2. Create a physical or virtual representation of the Pyramid Backlog, as shown in the example above.

3. Agree on the ground rules for the exercise:

There can be one, and only one, priority one, and that work item goes in the top row

There can be two, and only two, work items that go in the next row

There can be three, and only three, work items that go in the third row

(Continue this pattern for a number of rows that work in your context)

4. Once you’ve got work items placed in the various rows, take a step back and discuss as a group. Is there a need to move anything up or down?

5. Use the outcomes from the conversation to inform follow-on activities, such as Backlog Refinement and Sprint Planning.

Note: It can be helpful to use the Pyramid Backlog on a continuing basis, as a prioritization tool. For teams that are in habit of putting physical artifacts on the wall, it can be very helpful to have this in the same area as the team Kanban board, for instance.

Note 2: There are quite a few variations in terms of how this model can be applied. In the illustration above, for instance, there is a suggestion that all of the items in the top three rows of the Pyramid backlog be reasonably small, that all of the items in the next couple of rows are sized (but might not be as small), and that the items in the remaining rows might or might not be sized. Experiment with what works best for you.
Backlog Categorization and Backlog Prioritization are two different things
Tags: Backlog Management, Project Management, Product Management, Agile, Scrum

Photo by airfocus on Unsplash

Backlog Categorization and Backlog Prioritization are two completely different things that seem to get confused pretty easily.

Backlog categorization is used to categorize the backlog items into appropriate groups. These groups might be based on Class of Service, MoSCoW, Kano or any of the in-house categorization technique that people would have developed. (At Kissflow.com we use the WINES model — Winners, Invisibles, Needs, Experience and Sellers )

These Categorization and Classification are vital in forming homogenous sub-sets of items from which items can be picked to be worked on based on business needs. (we will work on 30% Winners, 20% Experience Features, 20% Sellers, 20% Needs and 10% Invisibles)

Prioritization on the other is the act of ordering the backlog based on what needs to be worked on and on what order. In other words it determines which of your winner list (when you classify by WINES) needs to be picked up first and which of your experience fixes need to be done immediately.

Feature prioritization techniques can range from providing relative direction between which feature amongst two needs to be prioritized earlier, to providing a sort order for your backlog. Of course these techniques carry biases and inaccuracies.

Common backlog prioritization techniques include Buy-a-Feature, Weighted scoring, Eisenhower Matrix, RICE framework etc.

There is nothing like a perfectly prioritized backlog. Prioritization is directional in nature rather than instructive, it gives you better leverage in finishing the project systematically. That said a project manager should not assume that his backlog is prioritized merely by categorizing it, thats like assuming you know how to cook a dish by merely arranging the ingredients mise en place.
Because they are control freaks.
By: Chris Fox
Tags: Scrum, Meetings, WFH

Because they are control freaks.

The ones who say "WFH doesn't work" aren't the people working from home, they're the managers who get their jollies calling pointless meetings that require losing 2–3 hours every workday of one’s life in commutes. and strolling around watching people work.

What could the other reason be for the “daily scrum” always held in the morning? We did status updates in email for 20 years.
Kita Vs. Mereka dalam Scrum
By: Amir Syafrudin
Tags: Pemerintah, Manajemen, Manajemen Proyek, Agile, Scrum

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Pivotal Tracker — quick Templates for your Bugs and Features
By: Tyla Devon Gillings
Tags: Software Development, Scrum, Agile Development

This past summer I began using Pivotal Tracker at work.

I found out quickly just how easy it was to use their template building tools to speed up and standardize story writing for the rest of the team.

If you already use Pivotal Tracker, great! Just sign in and follow the steps!

If you do not already have an account, you will need to create one and create a project in order to begin!
Sprint Planning Cheat-Sheet
By: Sravani Royyuru
Tags: Agile, Scrum, Software Development, Sprint Planning

“If you fail to plan then you are planning to fail, “ said Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the United States.

Well, after 5 years of working in an agile set-up, I do not seem to quite agree with Mr.Franklin.

Despite planning two weeks at a time, for the past so many years, failure sometimes was inevitable. Years of planning Sprints, failing to meet the Sprint goals, and learning from mistakes have made me realize that the key is ‘how we plan, what we plan, and how much we plan’

In my team, for most of the issues/problems pointed out during our Retrospectives, the root problem, after asking ourselves the 5 why’s, was ‘Ah, that was a miss in Sprint Planning!’.

Therefore we felt the need to address and correct our Step 1: Sprint Planning.

Based on my past experiences and the innumerable rounds of course correction in Sprint Planning, I have come up with this cheat-sheet that seems to be working for our team.

First off, the PO plays a key role in setting a purpose which gives the team a clear reason and an understanding of the task to accomplish. This reason automatically translates to Sprint Goal and it sets the tone for the rest of the discussions.

The next stage of Story picking is a natural process of identifying all the PBIs that help the team achieve the set Goal or purpose.

Splitting the Sprint Backlog items into smaller, discrete sub-tasks helps in maintaining transparency through the Sprint and gives the team an opportunity to set small milestones. To see a good flow of these sub-tasks across swim lanes gives the team the impetus it needs to keep chugging along with a sense of accomplishment. It is always best to add all the identified Dependencies and Uncertainties in a Story as Subtasks to the board, for the sake of transparency. They also serve as reminders.

By roughly estimating the sub-tasks during sprint planning, the team will be able to assess the workload. This increases the likelihood of the team finishing all they say they will. Second, identifying tasks and estimating them during sprint planning helps team members better coordinate their work.

The discussions that go into creating this plan are quite crucial. It is important to keep these discussions crisp and focussed to not make the Planning sessions exhausting. A good dialog on how to address the dependencies and uncertainties, on how to keep the tasks rolling in parallel, etc is also quite essential for the success of our plan.

Hurray! We have our plan for the next couple of weeks. I want to write the next two sentences in bold. “Do not spend more time trying to make your Plan perfect.” “Inspect and Adapt as you go.”

The development team has the full flexibility to negotiate with the Product Owner either to remove some tasks from the sprint or to add something new as long as the reasons are genuine.

There you go. It is now time to get down to business.
The Long and Windy Road to January 20
By: Patrick O Hearn
Tags: Electoral College, Make America Great Again, Elections, Constitution, Voting

Mr Spira, you deftly traversed the arcane procedures set forth by our Founding Fathers, who apparently suffered an OCD level of rumination so that all election contingencies followed standard operating procedures. I confess, having arisen from a decadent slumber, my mental motor stalled around Argument 2.5. Surveying my options, I confess a marked ambivalence rising from my loins and through the molasses of my mental lazing, much like acidic superchunks that I heave forth. I’m sickened from the heavy stench, sour and acrid, stirred up into a Devil wind by 4 years of brouhaha and frenzy. Nay, I see a pastoral road yonder, leading me away from those dastardly parliamentary procedures and deadly polemics to my Sunday happy place: classical (followed by jazz) on the airwaves, a Major Veg & Cheese 3 egg omelette, crisp bacon (3), whole grain toast (1), butter, jam, half a banana and Huge Mug of coffee with sweet cream in the kitchen, and the “L.A. Times” Sunday Funnies on the table. Call me nostalgic, but God I love Sunday mornings and a 3D newspaper.☺️

(Anyway, you had me at “overnight conservation”). 😆

But I will forward your persuasive essay, hopefully the final word on the matter, to my 40 year old, MAGA baseball cap wearing, Canadian friend (don’t ask; I too remind him Canada really is a foreign country and Justin’s in blackface, so MYOB with your MAGA, eh?!). He doesn’t read the Funnies. Maybe he should.

Now, go get some sleep; seems like you’ve been up all night, conversating. 😉

Let’s all put it to rest.

And to the rest of My Fellow Americans: God Bless US, Everyone! We’ll need it in 2021…
Counter- The Secured Voting App
Tags: Ui Ux Design, Voting

Overview

Counter is an easy-to-use app that enables voters cast their votes from the comfort of their homes, workplaces or anywhere basically with few clicks. This saves time and stress of having to queue for several hours at polling units to cast their vote.

The Challenge

There are a lot of ready voters with PVC’s (Permanent Voters Card) or relevant ID’s required to vote but with the challenge of either time, location, stress, weather conditions or security issues they may encounter at the polling unit.

Again, that people like things being done quickly, easily and seamlessly in this modern age, the enthusiasm to go out and vote especially for the younger age group is declining.

User Personas

User personas were created on prospective users of the product who represented the target audience and match their problems with the intended solutions of this product.

The Solution

The counter app was designed as an easy-to-use product with which voting at state or federal level can be carried out seamlessly with high end security. To use the app, users need to first register with their Voter’s Identification Number (VIN) and some additional information. This is to verify and collate their data that will be stored in the counter’s cloud based system.

Users will be notified upon successful registration of details with counter and thereafter they can log in and proceed to vote. The user interface is intuitive and with few clicks your vote is confirmed and counted.

This is the user module of the app. The admin module is where elections are being created and monitored while counter secures both systems for effective performance during and after the process.

Process

Following the problems experienced in the personas, ideas were birthed to form the user walkthrough of the product. Creating the walkthrough was essential as it ensured the goal of the product was always at heart during the design process.

Low fidelity wireframes were sketched to have a clear plan of the layout and hierarchy of the product’s design interface. The color scheme for this product is liable to change based on the administrator’s brand color.
Decentraland DAO Proposal for Avatar NAMES (Gold, Silver, Bronze Edition Proposal)
Tags: Voting, Names and Naming, Decentraland, Community, Proposal

DCL Names GOLD, SILVER & BRONZE Edition Proposal

All Decentraland names minted from 02/20/20 to 02/20/21 to be visually recognisable differently in-word as well as on-chain. All of these names can display the “GOLD EDITION” Badge

Names minted from date 02/20/21 to 02/20/22 to be “SILVER EDITION”

Names minted from date 02/20/22 to 02/20/23 to be “BRONZE EDITION”

Names minted from date 02/20/23 will be ordinary names without any Badges.

No matter how many names are ever minted later, these names will always draw a certain value from the fact that they were minted either in the first, second or third year of Decentraland’s Launch

I believe this idea will be extremely well received because on the one hand it has a certain charm and on the other hand gives the whole ecosystem of names a further recognition and awareness as well as rewarding the pioneers of DCL.

Please vote “YES” or “NO”
I don’t think the fraud perpetrated by Donald Trump affected the election outcome, though that was…
By: Laura Federico
Tags: Election 2020, Trump, Fraud, Russian Hacking, Voting

I don’t think the fraud perpetrated by Donald Trump affected the election outcome, though that was certainly its purpose. I and many others do use the word fraud because it was verifiable. It was done openly. Trump was impeached for (again, openly — on camera, more than once) drawing a foreign nation into our election to try to benefit himself. It’s also now known that he did the same in 2016. Russia has been involved in both elections and this is proven, so either side can reference it. I call that fraud.

In addition to which, the misinformation his administration repeatedly promoted, the sabotage of the post office, etc, were done openly. This is not a case of “one side claims, but the other side insists …” All of America saw the fraud happening in real time before our eyes.

So the issue becomes how the GOP fraud affected the final numbers, not whether fraud took place. And as I say there’s no way to measure the exact extent of it. (A person who couldn’t bring a newborn to stand in an 8-hour voting line? A person without a car to drive to the one ballot dropoff location in a whole city? The person, GOP or Dem, who was scared to cast a vote at all because the President was claiming fraud before voting even started? It is obviously impossible now to count those lost votes, and there had to have been thousands of them, if not millions.)

Those numbers matter because the voting stats after an election help candidates, whether Republican or Democratic, strategize future races.

I think it’s good that platforms like Medium exist. You & I have different points of view but we can discuss them. Even if we don’t change each other’s mind, bringing mutual respect to the discussion is good. This country needs to heal. We need to quit hating each other. Like a family, we are weaker divided than united.

We can see by the recent Russian hack to our system that when we are consumed by our inner turmoil we are not paying attention to our adversaries & we aren’t protecting ourselves.Thanks for this good exchange of views. Happy holidays.
goverHow Do We Vote at a Meeting?
By: Debi Peverill
Tags: Voting Methods, Voting, Governance, Meetings, Productivity

There are a number of ways that a group can vote.

The most common is for the chair to ask, “All in favour please signify by saying Aye.” After the group has said Aye then the chair will say “Contrary minded, if any please signify by saying Nay.” And if no one says “Nay” then the motion is carried unanimously. Some groups have a more casual approach they might just say “All in favour” rather than adding the “signify” part.

If the vote is not clear after this approach, likely because there were Ayes and Nays, then the board chair can repeat the process by asking for a show of hands. Hands are easy to count and the group will likely have no trouble agreeing on who has their hands in the air and who does not. You count the ayes first and then the nays and hopefully a decision is reached. If there is a tie, check your rules, but in general that means that the chair must cast the deciding vote.

You can also vote by secret ballot, which is the method used for parliamentary elections in Canada. No one has to know how you voted. The secret ballot is a method that can be appropriate for contentious matters. It is possible that a strong willed board member is attempting to intimidate some of the other board members into voting in according with his or her wishes. A timid board member will be more comfortable voting in secret, than raising their hand with others watching them. Obviously this works better in a larger group. If there are only 5 people voting then it is not as difficult to figure out how people cast their votes.

Another method is by polling. The board chair asks each member, in turn, for their answer on how they are going to vote. This can be very intimidating for some board members. I would not generally recommend this approach. You see it used in criminal trials where the lawyer asks each juror to say whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. The intent is that some juror will crack under the stress and vote in a different way than they agreed to vote in the juries’ room. Hopefully nothing like that is going on at your meetings and you do not need to use polling.

Polling on Zoom means a different thing. You can set up a poll on Zoom and get a vote in a way that no one knows who voted in favour and who voted against. So, understand that polling on Zoom is not intimidating but in person it can be very scary.

I have talked about these methods pretty much in the order that you would use them. The Aye or Nay approach works nearly all of the time and you would only move to the show of hands if the Aye or Nay was unclear. The secret ballot is most appropriate for contentious or divisive issues and the polling in person would be used only rarely.
It Almost Happened Here
By: Paul Albert
Tags: Voting, Romania, Humor, House Of Representatives, Politics

It Almost Happened Here

Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash

After the majority of House Republicans supported baseless election fraud claims, emerging democracies will now look toward Romania for inspiration after its prime minister graciously left office after losing an election.

To paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, “It Almost Happened Here.”

(Paul Albert writes about humor and American history. His work has been included in 15 newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Daily News.)
New Popular Song: What If the Loser Refuses to Lose? Compares Politics to Sports Where Good Sports Know When to Quit
By: Gini Graham Scott
Tags: Joe Biden, 2020 Presidential Race, Latest News, Election 2020, Voting

What if a Loser Refuses to Lose? Still a Loser!

Now a new popular song What If the Loser Refuses to Lose? featured on YouTube https://youtu.be/MyW_QUWNSNA and major musical platforms is especially timely in light of as Trump’s continued fight to challenge the election results — even thinking about a military intervention for a national emergency.

What If the Loser Refuses to Lose? compares losing in politics and sport where a good sport knows when to quit, unlike a sore loser who refuses to accept a loss and tries to change the rules of the game. The song describes the various ways to determine a loser in racing, in tennis, and in other sports. So why should politicians be allowed to drag things out? Instead, as the song concludes: once the game ends, there should be no more do-overs, because part of the game is knowing when to quit.

For more information about the song, songwriters, and music publishers, you can contact Changemakers Publishing at changemakerspub@att.net.

GINI GRAHAM SCOTT, Ph.D., J.D., is a nationally known writer, consultant, speaker, and seminar leader, specializing in business and work relationships, professional and personal development, social trends, and popular culture. She has published 50 books with major publishers. She has worked with dozens of clients on memoirs, self-help, popular business books, and film scripts. Writing samples are at www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com.

She is the founder of Changemakers Publishing, featuring books on work, business, psychology, social trends, and self-help. The company has published over 200 print, e-books, and audiobooks. She has received national media exposure for her books, including appearances on Good Morning America, Oprah, and CNN.

Scott is active in a number of community and business groups, including the Lafayette, Pleasant Hill, and Walnut Creek Chambers of Commerce. She does workshops and seminars on the topics of her books.

She is also the writer and executive producer of 10 films in distribution, release, or production. Her most recent films that have been released include Driver, The New Age of Aging, and Infidelity.

She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. from the University of San Francisco Law School. She has received five MAs at Cal State University, East Bay, most recently in Communication.
The Mitch McConnell Problem
By: Fred Van Deusen
Tags: Elections, Mitch Mcconnell, Government, Democracy, Voting

December 18, 2020

I have spent the past week talking with 15 different U.S. Senate staffers, both Republicans and Democrats. I was working with a faith-based group to better understand the possibility of new voting legislation to support some of the broadly adopted improvements from this year’s election: early voting, voting by mail, on-line voter registration. All of these improvements facilitated the largest voter turnout we have ever seen for both major political parties. Nearly 160 million citizens voted in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. Truly this was an amazing accomplishment. From a democracy perspective, legislation to encourage using these new and proven methods should be an easy sell, but it isn’t.

What we heard from the staffers on both sides was a ray of hope and a lot of discouragement. One man, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader of the Senate, personally controls the future of this legislation and nearly all other federal legislation. The way the current system works is that he decides what bills to bring forward and all, or virtually all, Republican Senators fall in line behind him. He also controls much of the money they receive for their election campaigns. By virtue of his position he can stop nearly any legislation from happening, no matter how many of us support it.

This system is wrong, unfair and undemocratic, and it must be changed. No one person in government should have this much power, not even the President of the United States. Regardless of the outcome of the two Senate races in Georgia, the current system needs to be changed. Our democratic system of government is built on the idea that different sides of an issue need to be heard before a decision is reached by voting. Mitch McConnell has taken that away from us and our country.

I am sure there are many ways to make this a more democratic process. One thought is for the President of the Senate, the Senate Majority Leader and the Senate Minority Leader to form a small committee to discuss and decide which legislation to bring forward to the whole Senate. That would ensure that a minority voice is heard. If the Senate President is asked to represent the will of the people, it would ensure that we are all included in the decision as well.
Split-Ticket Voting Explained
By: Impartial - A Votingsmarter Blog
Tags: Split Ticket, Politics, Non Partisan, Voting

What is split-ticket voting?

Split-ticket voting is the practice of voting for more than one political party on a ballot. During any election there will be federal, state, and local offices on the same ballot. You can vote for your political party all the way through. On the other hand, you can ‘split’ your vote between different political parties. For instance, this could mean giving a vote to the Republican candidate for a Senate seat and a vote to the Green Party candidate for the presidency.

How common is it?

Ticket-splitting is a fascinating phenomenon because many people have a deep-rooted attachment to their political party and voting for another party may feel like a betrayal. This may be why split-voting has become less and less common among Americans. According to a 2018 study by FiveThirtyEight, more and more voters are casting straight-ticket ballots. The researchers looked at the median difference between the margin of victory in statewide Senate and governor races in midterm elections. The overall trend that this study shows is a steady decline in split-ticket voting since 1998. However, there are exceptions, such as the 2004 elections in Montana, where Democratic candidate Brian Schweitzer was elected governor 50.4% to 46.0%, while incumbent Republican President George W. Bush won over Democrat John Kerry 59% to 39%. This suggests that a large number of voters split their vote, choosing a Republican presidential candidate and a Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate.

Why do people split their vote?

What may not be as simple as finding the statistics is answering the question of why people split their vote? There are a few different theories. One is the incumbency advantage: a politician currently in office has more visibility and easier access to campaign finance. More often than not, an incumbent politician will have an advantage over a newcomer, as mentioned in the article above. For example, someone could vote Democrat for the open seat in the House of Representatives because that is their chosen party, they may vote Republican for Senate IF the incumbent Senator is Republican, thus splitting their vote.

Another theory as to why people split their vote is tactical voting. This is when a person does not vote for their ideal candidate because that candidate has a low chance of winning. The voter instead supports another, more popular candidate (who may belong to a different political party) because they prefer that candidate to the other popular, opposing candidate. In other words, a voter may split their vote by strategically voting for a different party’s candidate so as to pick the lesser of two evils.

Not sure if you are splitting your vote or even who you’re voting for? Check out VotingSmarter’s #CandidateMatchmaker which can give you unbiased voting tools to help you decide which candidates match your ideologies!

(Contributed by Jen Zavala, Multimedia Content Creator, VotingSmarter)
2020 Voter Turnout Was The Highest Since The 1900 Election
By: Daniel Larkin
Tags: Numbers, Voter Turnout, Election 2020, Data, Voting

There are generally two ways voter turnout is measured: There’s the voting age population, and then there’s the voting eligible population.

The voting age population includes everyone who lives in the U.S. that is over the age of 18, but does not factor in whether these people would be able to vote. The current estimate for this figure is 255,200,373.

Factors such as citizenship or criminal records can bar someone from voting. Federally, no illegal immigrants are allowed to vote in an election. If they do and get caught, there are legal actions ranging from fines, to imprisonment, to deportation. For felons, only certain states deny them the right to vote.

The voting eligible population represents all who can vote in elections. In the U.S., that means being a citizen of at least 18 years of age. This number includes non-registered voters and felons from states where they can vote. The voting eligible population is estimated at 239,247,182.

The Numbers

In the meanwhile, all ballots have been cast but not all those ballots have been counted. As the tally sits right now, 158,395,371 ballots have been counted (this is continuously changing). And while the vast majority are counted by now, the tally still changes daily.

As it stands right now, the 2020 Presidential Election had a voter eligible turnout of roughly 66.2% — just barely short of a 2/3 turnout.

The voter eligible turnout for every presidential election from 1904 through 2016 was lower, sometimes by 1 percent, and as much as 17.2 percent higher in contrast with the 1996 election (49.0% turnout).

The question now, is whether future elections will continue this stretch of higher turnout than what it has been for decades now.
There have been at least three incidences of “alternate electors” showing up and trying to vote…
By: Manny Otiko
Tags: Election 2020, Trump, Politics, Democracy, Voting

There have been at least three incidences of “alternate electors” showing up and trying to vote for Trump in states he lost. There is no such thing as an alternate elector. These people should be arrested for election fraud!
AAPI Rural Voters in Georgia Key to Senate Runoffs
By: Aapi Victory Fund
Tags: Georgia Elections, Elections, Asian American, Georgia, Voting

After this November’s election, Democrats around the country breathed a collective sigh of relief. Joe Biden won in the “Blue Wall” states as well as in previously red states like Arizona and Georgia. In the subsequent weeks, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) were highlighted in major national publications as an underrated and often discounted electorate that has an incredible potential to decide elections. AAPI groups, including the AAPI Victory Fund, have been saying this for years, but for now, the country is coming to terms with the magnitude of this still emerging voting bloc.

As evidence of this, from 2016 and 2020 AAPI turnout in Georgia spiked by 91 percent. At more than 250,000 strong AAPIs are nearly 5 percent of Georgia’s electorate. The organizing efforts of groups like the AAPI Victory Fund, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, and the New Georgia Project, electrified AAPI voters from Atlanta to Savannah, from the suburbs to rural areas, on and before November 3rd.

While much of the country’s focus will be on Atlanta and its surrounding suburbs, it is just as critical to focus on rural Georgia. Upon closer inspection of current datasets, there are at least 55,000 AAPI Democrats in Georgia’s less-dense rural areas, twice as many as originally thought. This was largely due to the discovery that data concerning AAPI sub-ethnicities are often incomplete, and supplemental analysis is often required. In particular, data for specific Indian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino and Japanese voters are misidentified in state voters files as other ethnicities or listed as “unknown” or “other.” Making matters more complicated, according to APIA Vote, 80 percent of Asian Americans in Georgia speak a language other than English at home and turnout is 9 percent lower among Limited English Proficiency registered voters. Having accurate data will make contact with voters in their primary language much more likely.

At least 15,000 rural AAPI voters came out to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, far more than the 12,000 votes Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the state by. The AAPI Victory Fund is focusing on these voters, plus those who did not turn out on November 3rd.

On January 5th, 2021, as Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock face off against Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, we believe that these rural AAPI voters will be key to winning both of these seats to take control of the Senate, unlocking a Biden-Harris legislative agenda. We have the opportunity to reassert our values as a nation of immigrants driven by the promise of equality and prosperity.

So consider this is your call to arms — text this article to your friends in Georgia, and make sure they vote. Donate whatever you can to the AAPI Victory Fund. And if you are an AAPI voter in Georgia, remember: January 5th is just as critical an election as November 3rd was. Get five of your Georgia friends to commit to vote, and get them to do the same — vote Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock on January 5th.
Guest Post: First Time Voting for President
By: Romance Daily News
Tags: Election 2020, Elections, Voting

By Stephanie Valentin

When I was much younger, I wasn’t educated about or too interested in “politics.” It was in the year 2016 that I realized how many opinions of my own I did have based on my beliefs I’ve developed as a growing teenager. I didn’t know anything about Donald J. Trump at the time, but it wasn’t long before I learned about his history, and what he was striving for as a candidate for the 2016 presidential election. Up until Election Day, I laughed at this man, thinking to myself that there’s no way America will vote him into office. Although I couldn’t vote at the time as a 16 year-old, I had faith in who the country would choose.

I’ll never forget how I felt the morning after Trump’s win for the presidential election was announced. I was confused, and hurt. I felt blindsided by the country. With each following year of Trump’s presidency, the country has become increasingly divided. My friends and I predicted the harm that has been inflicted on many communities in this country, which is why I looked forward to finally being able to exercise my right to vote. I am no longer a 16 year-old girl who didn’t know much about politics. I am a strong, 20 year-old woman who is educated on my beliefs and determined to contribute to a step in the right direction for everyone in this country.

This Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020, I voted for president for the first time. It felt empowering to feel as though I had a voice that I didn’t have before, especially in what could be considered one of the most controversial elections in history.

Something I noticed as I was leaving the voting site was a new layer of determination and pride within myself. Voting has made me feel closer to the millions of other people who have been voting for their rights for years, as well as other first-time presidential voters like myself. While I have been standing for certain communities and movements for years now, this feels like the loudest way I have been able to say “I’m here for myself, my family, and everyone else in this country who hasn’t been heard for too long.”
Ten facts about the 2020 election
By: Desmond O Halloran
Tags: 2020, Elections, 2020 Presidential Race, Election 2020, Voting

In total, 158,395,371 people voted this election cycle, according to the Cook Political Report’s National Popular Vote Tracker. The U.S. Elections Project estimates that the total voting-eligible population (VEP) in 2020 — the voting-age population (VAP), minus disenfranchised felons and non-citizens — was 239,247,182. The turnout rate, then (voters divided by VEP), was 66.2%. (The Elections Project, whose ballot estimates are slightly higher than the Cook Report’s, puts the rate at 66.7%, but the difference is negligible.) Sixty-six percent is an unusually strong turnout for an American election — the strongest, in fact, since 1900 — but fairly weak compared to other developed countries. Joe Biden received (again using the Cook Report’s numbers) 81,282,376 votes, while Donald Trump received 74,222,576; in other words, Biden won 51.3% of the vote against Trump’s 46.9%. Biden’s edge in the popular vote (4.4%) was about twice Hillary Clinton’s in 2016 (2.1%), and higher than Barack Obama’s in 2012 (3.9%), but about half Obama’s in 2008 (7.3%) and Bill Clinton’s in 1996 (8.5%), and nowhere near the Republican landslides of the 80s. In terms of the VEP — the pool of people eligible to vote — Biden won 34.0% of the potential electorate against Trump’s 31.0%. According to an exit poll by Morning Consult, which used data from more than 20,000 respondents, 22% of Trump voters (16.3 million people) said they were voting against Biden rather than for Trump. According to the same poll, twice as many Biden voters — 44%, or 35.7 million people — said they were voting against Trump rather than for Biden. On 20 January 2021, the United States will inaugurate a president whom only 19% of the population wanted to vote for as president.

(A bonus: The number of nonvoters plus the number of strategic voters — those who voted against a candidate rather than for one — equals 132,958,760 people: 55.6% of the voting-eligible population. That is a majority of the country — you could even call it a silent majority.)
The Best Story Of The Last Two Weeks
By: Marcus Franke
Tags: Travel, Contests, Africa, Community, Voting

The Best Story Of The Last Two Weeks

Dear Travelers,

Thank you all for the active participation in our little contest, you are the best!

We have received a total of 20 votes and of which 16 are valid.

(the remaining four have clapped a little too much)



It is a very close result!

World Traveler’s Blog proudly presents: The very best story from the first two weeks of December, as voted by the community!

The African Version of Tropical Paradise

Congratulations Anne Bonfert, fantastic job!



If you haven’t checked out her wonderful story yet, you really need to take a look at her journey to Africa now and leave her some claps:)

The photos and stories of Zanzibar’s dream-like beaches are truly unique.
I don’t believe you said that either.
By: Ellarwee Gadsden
Tags: Elections, Conservatives, Trump, Race, Voting

I don’t believe you said that either. I read the first 4 responses in the contexts of your article’s topic. What my impression was only one of the 3 responses had only a tangential relationship to blacks and elections. I know your point wasn’t mine. But, the context of my response included at least 5 of you. You haven’t mentioned your response to the content of my response, so I have no idea what your thoughts are about what I said, almost all of which wasn’t about what you wrote. I included you to indicate that in some way(s) I could fathom a relationship between their responses and your article’s point. I chose to put in my 2 cents. You appeared to be introducing your readership to an idea, a way of looking at the increase in black (male) support for Trump. I provided support from my perspective of how what you asserted might well be the case…that it was easy to accept if your readers had an idea of how it is that blacks can be susceptible to republican/conservative leanings. I apologize if what I wrote was offensive. I’m not like that. Does what I’ve just written convey anything negative. Look, I thought I’d been intellectually reasonable. Gee, did I get it back assward!
What Does GPS and Homing Pigeons and Bees Have in Common?
By: Jack C Lee
Tags: Gps, Communications, Bees, Pigeons, Voting

The other day, I saw a show on PBS talking about animal communications and data processing. Did you know a homing pigeon can fly 1000 miles and locate the origin location even being blindfolded. Somehow, the brain and senses of the pigeon is so sensitive, it can precisely locate its “home” coordinates just by flying in circle three times. What device we humans can invent to duplicate this amazing feat?

The closest thing we have is a GPS. This required a bunch of satellites sent into orbits, and a smart phone with GPS chip to compute the current location using complex triangulation computation and then having a maping system with coordinates of known addresses, and an app to compute the best routes.

An even more amazing feat is the honey bee. Apparently, a bee can precisely locate a source of food within a few kilometers radius, and then communicate this information back at the hive to its fellow bees with a dance. This information is precise enough that the other bees can follow the instructions to the source of the food without the original bee leading the way.

In terms of information processing, how much compute power would it need to capture this data and communicate it to another bee such that it is accuate enough to locate an exact position a long distance away and in the wild?

Again using the GPS analogy, the bee would have to locate the coordinates of this location and then “tell” the other bees with similar understanding of the language such that it is precisely replicated regardless of weather conditions and other obstacles.

How is this even possible?

Finally, an even more amazing feat of bees is when it is time to choose a new location for a hive. In this instance, the bee hive sends out 10,000 scout bees to find the perfect location with just the right height, and volume of space needed for a thriving bee hive. Once a potential candidate is found, the scouts return to the hive for a convention where each scout will communicate the location and argue for the candidate. Other bees will go out and verify his findings…and return to report. At the end, the best location is decided by a voting process, not unsimilar to our elections of political candidates. Once a decision is made, the bees swarm and with a new queen, migrate in mass to this new hive.

Imagine a system like that which works very well and has survived millions of years and in fact was instrumental in the development of our planet, our eco system, and food production which lead to the survival of the human race.