The Election Science Office Hours Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 25: Jonathan Katz and Partisan Gerrrymandering Oct 28, 2025

Show notes

Join me as I discuss with Caltech prof Jonathan N. Katz the current round of mid-decade partisan gerrymandering. We focus attention on Texas and California, discussing in particular California's Proposition 50. We talk about Jonathan's work on elections and redistricting as well!

Episode 24: Ben Adida, VotingWorks Oct 01, 2025

Show notes

On this episode, I talk with Ben Adida, the founder of VotingWorks. Ben has done important scientific research on voting systems early in his career, and we discuss his thoughts about cyptography and elections and the early history of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (where we met!). We talk about why he founded VotingWorks, and why it was founded as a nonprofit business. And we discuss Ben's thinking about how AI might improve election administration, in particular how AI might be used to improve the accessibility of the elections process.

Episode 23: Matt Masterson on election security Sep 16, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Matt Masterson joins me to talk about election security and election administration. Matt is Senior Director, Elections and Societal Resilience at Microsoft; previously he was a Commissioner and Chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. We talked about election security, voter registration databases. There's also a great part of the conversations about AI and election administration!

Episode 22: Natalie Masuoka and How CA Redistricting Might Change Asian American Political Representation Sep 04, 2025

Show notes

California's controversial mid-cycle redistricting proposal will be on the state's ballot on November 4th. Now that the proposed maps are out, it's time to start to dig into how they might change the state's congressional delegation. Join me as I talk about one important aspect of these changes - how the new maps, if enacted, might reshape political representation for Asian Americans in California.

Episode 21: Justin Levitt on partisan gerrymandering in 2025 Aug 13, 2025

Show notes

Here I talk with Justin Levitt about why Texas is considering redrawing their Congressional district lines now, what other states are considering in response, and what it all might mean for the 2026 midterm elections.

Episode 20: Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico's Chief Election Official Jul 31, 2025

Show notes

Earlier in July I had a chance to talk with Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico's Chief Election Officer. We talked about election administration in New Mexico, focusing on election reforms and election security. We also talked about what a Secretary of State's job entails, and learned about Maggie's plans once her current term in office is complete!

Episode 19: Kim Wyman Jun 20, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Kim Wyman and I discuss threats to election security, what was done in the 2020 election to mitigate threats and what we should be doing to prepare to mitigate new threats looking ahead to the 2026 and 2028 elections.

Episode 18: Betsy Sinclair, AI and election governance Jun 18, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of Election Science Office Hours I talk with Betsy Sinclair from WashU. Betsy and I chat about AI and election governance, election rumors, and a conference that we are planning for October at WashU. Betsy is one of the early election scientists, having written many studies about election administration and election science in the last two decades.

Episode 17: Gretchen Macht, how an engineer helps improve democracy May 21, 2025

Show notes

In this episode of Election Science Office Hours, I talk with Professor Gretchen Macht of the University of Rhode Island. She is an engineer by training, and has developed an important and unique research agenda working to improve election administration. We talk about her work, how she engages with election officials, and how she is developing new networks for bring more engineers and STEM researchers into election science. It's a great episode, full of energy and enthusiasm!

Episode 16: Stephan Lewandowsky and the Microtargeting Manipulation Machine Apr 26, 2025

Show notes

In this special episode of Election Science Office Hours, I talk with Stephan Lewandowsky, prof at the University of Bristol, about his innovative research on AI microtargeting. Stephan has shown that AI can be used to develop personally-targeted persuasive advertisements. This of course has important implications for upcoming elections worldwide and for democratic discourse. This talk and conversation was originally recorded January 17, 2025, as part of a conference hosted by Caltech.

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