POLITICAL THINK TANK PUTS ITSELF UP FOR

SALE ON EBAY

Non-partisan Bay Area Center for Voting Research

Does Internationally Renowned Studies;

Perfect Holiday Gift for Political Junkies; Winning

Bidder to Become Instant Political Pundit

BERKELEY, CA – What holiday gift do you get for the

political junkie who has everything and just can’t

wait for the first Presidential primary ballots to be

cast next year? How about an internationally

renowned think tank that among other things broke

new ground by ranking America’s most liberal and

conservative cities.

The non-partisan Bay Area Center of Voting

Research (BACVR) is doing what no other think tank

has ever done before: putting itself up for sale on

eBay.

“The Bay Area Center for Voting Research has

always been on the cutting-edge of the think tank

community,” said Phil Reiff, BACVR co-founder. “We

democratized the staid world of political research by

creating the first Internet-based think tank. Using the

eBay auction process to select the next leadership

for BACVR is a perfect extension of our innovative

approach.”

“The winning bidder of the auction will take over

ownership of the BACVR think tank and will become

an instant political pundit with a prestigious

platform,” said Jason Alderman BACVR’s other co- founder.

Bidding on the Berkeley, California think tank

can be seen at eBay item number .

Alderman and Reiff said they set the opening bid for

BACVR intentionally low at $5,000 in order to attract

a wide array of potential new owners and to send a

clear message to bidders that running a think tank

can be done by anyone, not just Ivy-League

professors and Washington, D.C. insiders.

In addition to the seminal study on America’s most

liberal and conservative cities – which found Detroit

to be the most liberal and Provo, Utah the most

conservative – BACVR was also the first think tank

to identify the far-reaching political impact ‘527’

organizations were having on elections. The think

tank’s research can be read at www.votingresearch. org.

BACVR’s respected work has been cited by many

other academic researchers as well as being

featured in hundreds of articles in news media

outlets worldwide, including the New York Times,

USA Today, the Associated Press, Agence France- Presse, the San Francisco Chronicle, the

Washington Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Miami

Herald, the Detroit News, the Seattle Post- Intelligencer, the Indianapolis Star, the Minneapolis

Star Tribune, and the Arizona Republic, among

others.

Foreign diplomats from Israel and China have also

sought out BACVR researchers to better understand

the evolving American political process.

BACVR was founded in 2004 by Alderman and Reiff.

Initially created to study voting trends in the San

Francisco Bay Area, BACVR kept its Northern

California-centric name and eventually grew in scope

to cover electoral research nationwide. After leading

the organization for the past three years, Alderman

and Reiff decided they were ready to turn their think

tank over to new leadership.

The winning bidder will receive all of BACVR’s

intellectual assets, including the organization’s web

site, past research, and well-known name. Being an

Internet based organization, there is no physical

property to take over or employees to pay. This gives

the think tank’s new leadership flexibility to run

BACVR on a part-time basis with minimal resources,

or to add staff, or to become integrated into another

organization looking to bolster their activities and

credibility.

Staying true to their belief that the think thank

community needs to be further democratized and

include a broader array of leaders, Alderman and

Reiff are not placing restrictions on who can bid or

win control of BACVR.