While quite a few excellent pieces came out last week based on our Post Election Voter Engagement report, my personal favorite is probably Julian Sanchez’s article over at Ars Technica.

While the piece has much to recommend it, I particularly liked how the author took our findings about involvement with the online transition and tied them in with some historical People-Press data that I tracked down with the help of Scott Keeter, the Pew Research Center’s director of survey research. One question that naturally arises from our findings is, “To what extent is this level of engagement actually new or surprising?” Mr. Sanchez not only took the time to ask the question, he also used the Pew Research Center’s archive of existing data to answer it in an interesting way.

Finally, while I’m highlighting the work of Ars Technica in general and Mr. Sanchez in particular, he also had a thought-provoking follow-up post on conservative efforts to “rebuild the party” using technology. GOP tech guru Mindy Finn makes an appearance in the comments, and a spirited discussion ensues. The two pieces make for a nice companion set, since the relatively low expectations of GOP voters (particularly when it comes to hearing from their “team” through social media) were a key component of our report that was somewhat lost in the focus on Obama and the transition process.