[EL] ESRA 2020 In-person Cancelled

[Michael McDonald]

We have received the directive from our administration to cancel all
in-person meetings at the University of Florida through the summer. While
not a surprise, this unfortunately means that we cannot hold the 2020
Election Sciences, Reform, and Administration conference in an in-person
format at this time.

We are considering our options, and would like to know how many people are
interested in participating virtually, either as a presenter, discussant,
or would just like to watch. If we decide to hold a virtual conference, we
will open the call for proposals again and allow those who responded to our
initial call the option of continuing or rescinding their proposal. We
would plan to hold the virtual conference on the original conference date
of June 22, and may extend to June 23 if there is sufficient interest.

I created the Google form in the link below to collect information on the
willingness of folks to proceed with a virtual conference format, so please
respond if you wish to participate in some manner. We will collect
responses through the end of next week and then make our decision on how to
proceed.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdv0Nyzev43dSsn_9O6bEFyc9ALwp3yz9lVrs65_3r3eFpdcw/viewform?usp=sf_link
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdv0Nyzev43dSsn_9O6bEFyc9ALwp3yz9lVrs65_3r3eFpdcw/viewform?usp=sf_link>

Another option is for us to hold the conference later in the year, but
there is considerable uncertainty about the future. Rather than invest much
time into preparations that may fail again, I prefer to hold a robust
conference-in-a-conference on election science at the Southern Political
Science Association meeting, which we have done for the past three years.

We can have a separate discussion as to which institution may wish to host
the 2021 ESRA conference. Our funds for the conference are largely
fungible, so there is no urgency for the University of Florida to host the
conference in 2021.

============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor, University of Florida
703-772-1440 (c)
352-273-2371 (w)
www.electproject.org
@ElectProject
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