As COVID-19 intensifies throughout the U.S., questions about the future of the remaining primary elections and the general election in November are beginning to surface. The last thing you want are large groups of people standing in line near each other for long periods of time. At a time when seemingly everything in life has gone remote, states are starting to think about what a remote election would look like, too.Our guest this week is one of the people helping them figure it all out.
Charles Stewart III, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT and a contributor to the Election Updates blog, a partnership between MIT and the California University of Technology. He's spoken with election officials across the country and about how to implement voting by mail and change processes to make in-person voting safe.
Voting by mail does not come without its problems in terms of election security and electoral integrity. We explore those with Charles and discuss how planning now can help mitigate those risks in the fall.
Democracy Works is proud to be part of Lyceum, a new platform dedicated to educational audio. The app includes curated lists of shows around topics like climate change, linguistics, and ancient history, as well as opportunities for listeners to connect with podcast creators and with each other. Visit lyceum.fm to learn more.
Ted Recommendations to Ensure a Healthy and Trustworthy 2020 Election - a piece Charles c0-wrote for Lawfare
The promise and peril of early voting
How states are working to keep you vote safe
This episode was recorded on Wednesday, March 25, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle and edited by WPSU's Chris Kugler, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
As we've seen over the past weeks and months, democracies and authoritarian countries respond to pandemics very differently. There are balances to be struck — liberty and community, human rights and disease mitigation — that every country's government and culture handle a little differently. We dive into that this week with our first ever all-remote episode as we adjust to the new normal of life during COVID-19.
Our guest is Nita Bharti, assistant professor of biology at Penn State and faculty member in the university's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics. Nita's research focuses on the interactions between social and biological processes as underlying determinants of human health — making her the perfect person for us to talk to about the response to COVID-19.
There are no silver bullets when it comes to outbreak mitigation, but there are lessons we can take from other outbreaks about how information affects behavior and how the government can help or hinder that process. As Nita says, we're likely only beginning to see what the new normal looks like in the U.S.
Nita's article on COVID-19 in The Conversation
The Bharti Lab of Human Infectious Diseases
The Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Penn State is taking questions about the Coronavirus pandemic at askciddpsu@psu.edu. Each week, experts will answer your most commonly asked questions, anonymously. They will attempt to provide the most current accurate information, informed by scientific evidence.
This episode was recorded on Thursday, March 19, 2020. It was engineered by Jenna Spinelle and edited by WPSU's Jen Bortz, and reviewed by Emily Reddy.
We know that there are a lot of episodes about COVID-19 out there right now. We're working on one of our own that we hope to bring to you soon, but in the meantime, consider something different to focus on while you practice social distancing this week.
We've talked a lot on this show about the rise of authoritarian leaders around the world — from Viktor Orban in Hungary to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. We sometimes tend to paint these countries with same brush, often referring to the book How Democracies Die. While the book remains of our favorites, this week's episode is a reminder that populism does not look the same everywhere.
We welcome back Penn State's Vineeta Yadav to look at some of the forces that are pushing back against populism around the world, and how those efforts look different in each place. She joined us last fall to discuss the rise of Narendra Modi in India. We reusume that conversation in this episode, but also touch on what's happening in Turkey and Brazil.
Michael and Chris also give an important overview of the difference between liberalism and democracy — and how the two work together to form the system of government practiced in many countries around the world today.
Stay tuned to the end of the episode for more information about Ways&Means, a podcast produced by the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. The show's current season is taking a deep dive into the relationship between politics and policy, covering topics like reparations and the decline of local news.
Inside the world's largest democracy - Vineeta Yadav's first appearance on Democracy Works
Brazil's tenuous relationship with democracy
How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt on the "grinding work" of democracy
This episode was recorded at WPSU's studios and engineered by Cole Cullen. It was edited by Chris Kubler and reviewed by Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
It's spring break at Penn State this week and we're going to take a brief hiatus to bring you an episode from a new podcast that's part of The Democracy Group, our new podcast network.
Swamp Stories is produced by Issue One, a group that takes a cross partisan approach to democracy reform. The podcast follows the host — millennial Republican and former candidate for office, Weston Wamp — as he shines a light on the swampiest practices in Washington that repulse Republicans and Democrats alike: Slush funds in Congress, dark money in elections, gerrymandered districts, foreign interference in our elections, dialing for dollars on Capitol Hill, and more.
The show debuted at the end of January and we are sharing its first episode with you. There are five others available if you want to binge them while we're away. We'll be back with a new episode of Democracy Works next week.
You can find Swamp Stories and all of our other network shows at democracygroup.org
Super Tuesday is this week, but voters in many states have already cast their ballots for races happening this week and throughout the rest of the primary season. From Florida to Pennsylvania, states are expanding access to early and absentee voting to give people more options to make their voices heard in our democracy.
Sounds great, right? However, early voting is not without its problems for candidates, election officials, and even voters. Daniel Smith, one of the country's leading elections experts, joins us this week for a look at the pros and cons of early voting, and how it might improve voter turnout among young people specifically.
Smith is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Florida and President of ElectionSmith, Inc. He is a nationally-recognized expert on direct democracy, campaign finance, and voting rights in the American states. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and his B.A. in History from Penn State.
Stay tuned to the end of the episode for more information about another great higher ed podcast, Ways & Means from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. The show's fifth season launched Feb. 19 and covers issues in politics and policy ahead of the 2020 election.
What should voting look like in the 21st century?
Primaries, parties, and the public
This episode was recorded at WPSU's studios and engineered by Andy Grant. It was edited by Mark Stitzer and reviewed by Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
As the South Carolina primary approaches, all eyes are on the African American vote. This week, Michael Berkman is taking over the interviewer's chair for a roundtable discussion on black politics with Ray Block and Candis Watts Smith, who are associate professors of African American studies and political science at Penn State.
Ray is the author of Losing Power: Americans and Racial Polarization in Tennessee Politics. Candis is the author of Stay Woke: A People's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter and Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics.
They discuss the history of black politics and how it's evolved in the years since the Civil Rights movement, how President Trump and the Democratic presidential candidates are received by African Americans, and how the Civil Rights movement and Black Lives Matter are informed by broader social and generational trends.
With so much punditry going on around appealing to black voters, we hope you'll enjoy the opportunity to take a step back from the punditry and look at the broader issues in black politics and how they relate to things like representation and inequality.
Ray's book, Losing Power: Americans and Racial Polarization in Tennessee Politics
Candis's books Stay Woke: A People's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter and Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics
School segregation then and now
The ongoing struggle for civil rights
This episode was engineered by Craig Johnson at the WPSU studios, edited by Chris Kugler, and reviewed by Emily Reddy. Additional support comes from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
Some of the most talked-about issues in Congress these days are not about the substance of policies or bills being debated on the floor. Instead, the focus is on the partisan conflict between the parties and the endless debate about whether individual members of Congress will break with party ranks on any particular vote. This behavior allows the parties to emphasize the differences between them, which makes it easier to court donors and hold voter attention.
Some amount of competition between the parties is necessary in a healthy democracy, but have things gone too far? Frances E. Lee joins us this week to explain.
Lee is jointly appointed in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs. She is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign and the forthcoming The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era with James M. Curry.
As you'll hear at the beginning of the episode, we are excited to announce that we are starting a podcast network! We are thrilled to bring together some of our favorite podcasts in democracy, civic engagement, and civil discourse in The Democracy Group. Visit democracygroup.org to learn more about our member shows and sign up for our mailing list to receive updates with new episodes, deep-dive playlists, and more.
Frances's book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign
Her lecture at Penn State on lawmaking in a polarized era
Congressional oversight and making America pragmatic again
Unpacking political polarization
This episode was recorded at WPSU's studios and engineered by Andy Grant. It was edited by Chris Kugler and reviewed by Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
Elections are the bedrock of any democracy. Without confidence in the process or the results, confidence in democracy itself is vulnerable. With the primary season underway and the general election just a few months away, conversations about election security are starting to enter the public conscience. We saw this firsthand in Iowa last week as conspiracy theories about results hacking swirled despite no evidence of malicious interference in caucus results.
Since 2016, states have taken measures to add paper trails, intrusion detection, audit systems, and other measures to safeguard the voting records from voting interference. However, elections are conducted county by county, which means resources are spread thin, and large-scale efforts can be difficult to coordinate. Adding this additional layer of security might also mean longer wait times at the polls on Election Day at a time when turnout is already expected to be high.
Our guest this week is Bill Theobald, a senior writer at The Fulcrum, a news site devoted to covering democracy-related issues. He covers election security and frequently talks with both election officials and security experts about how they are working together to safeguard the voting process and ensure a process the public can trust.
If you enjoy Democracy Works, please take a minute to visit ratethispodcast.com/democracy and leave us a rating in your podcast app.
The Fulcrum's story on election security in swing states
Protecting democracy from foreign interferance
What should voting look like in the 21st century?
This episode was engineered by Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, edited by WPSU's Chris Kugler, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
I believe the public thinks that a lot more happen than really did happen. I think it was so shocking that somebody tried to do this, that the fact that they were unsuccessful sort of gets lost. There are really only two things that we know about in which they actually broke into some particular system. One is the Illinois voter registration rolls and apparently they downloaded some names of people who are registered to vote. Nothing was changed and also there was some attempts and maybe success to break into some election offices, computers in Florida, but there's not entirely clear what they actually accomplished. And the bottom line is no votes were changed. No voter names were taken off or added to the voting rolls. Again, I think people were so outraged and concerned about it that they think that things were a lot worse than they were.
They are implementing systems that create a paper record of some sort. When you cast your ballot, you have a piece of paper and they have a piece of paper that shows what you intended to do with your vote. And that way they can check it against what the actual results are and make sure that there wasn't some problem in the way it was counted. They're also adding audits, which allows them to go back and actually check the results versus the ballots themselves.
The one that I hear the most about is Colorado and the reason for that is that they went to paper ballots or a ballot system or voting system that creates a paper record. And they were one of the first to mandate these risk limited audits after every election. And I think that they're considered to have a pretty well run operation and a uniformity of belief and a bipartisan support for some of these things. I think the places where this happens where it's going well are where there's an agreement that no matter what your political outlook is or what candidate you're going to vote for or who you support, that we have to come together and make sure that these systems are secure.
I guess you could say that there's probably politics and partisan politics these days in almost anything. But it's among the least partisan of the issues and if anything it's because of the great level of concern that's out there. I think there is certainly different policy positions on how to address it, whether to have a consistent funding mechanism from the federal government or whether that should be something that's left more to the states and the local governments. So one of the things that Republicans as part of their just general philosophy is that they have a concern about federal control of local elections in that they believe that the decision-making should be left at the local level.
I think one of the things that's not getting a lot of attention now it's going to continue to emerge as an issue is that with the additional steps and concerns about security, there's real and with a huge turnout that's now sort of being expected you're going to have a combination of lot of people and longer process, which means a longer wait time to vote if you actually voting on Election Day.
The 2020 primary season officially begins today with the Iowa caucuses, followed by the New Hampshire primary on February 11 and Nevada and South Carolina later this month.
It's easy to forget that the primaries have not looked like they do now. In fact, it was not until 1968 that things really began to morph into the system of state-by-state contests that we know today. Before that, nominees were largely chosen by party leaders in preverbal smoke-filled back rooms.
While the parties once ruled the primary process, they seem to have lost some of that control, particularly in recent years. Donald Trump, a candidate the Republican Party opposed for much of his candidacy, received the nomination in 2016. Bernie Sanders one of the top candidates in this year's Democratic candidate field, even though he is officially an independent. What does this change mean for democracy? We explore that question this week.
David Karol is an associate professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. He is an expert on primaries and the role that the political parties play in them and join us this week to help make sense of how we got here and where things might go moving forward.
David's book, The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform
Your guide to ranked-choice voting
How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt on the "grinding work" of democracy
This episode was engineered by Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, edited by WPSU's Chris Kugler, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
The first candidates were chosen by an informal congressional caucus, they had no legal authority, just more like a kind of a parliamentary arrangement. The members of Congress from a party selected the candidate and by the middle of the 19th century that conventions that we know today existed, but the delegates to those conventions were chosen at meetings that were not necessarily so well publicized and the participation while incorporating many more people than the congressional caucus did, it was a relatively small number of people who were involved. It wasn't very transparent.
By the early 20th century in the Progressive Era, primaries were established. Some candidates entered primaries selectively when they need to show strengths. A really strong candidate could hope to be drafted at a convention, which was kind of a fiction because in fact, they were running for the nomination, but the stronger they were the less visible they had to be in their efforts. That system existed more or less until the end of the 1960s.
People had for several years seen primaries as part of the process, if not dominant. But in 1968, what happened is President Johnson was being challenged by Eugene McCarthy, the general candidate. Johnson withdraws and Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President, then enters the race and doesn't run in any primaries because the filing deadlines have passed. At the Democratic Convention, Humphrey had the majority of the delegates. But there were these anti-Vietnam War protestors who as many people know were violently suppressed by the Chicago police. There were big protests at the convention and it was very messy on live television. And to reunify the party, hopefully, Humphrey agreed to establish a commission that after the election would try to reform the process and make it more open and participatory.
There wasn't a negotiation or a formal agreement at the national level between the parties, but the same trends to decline the favorite sons. The favorite son tradition was already in decline, and that was true in both parties. As I said, Barry Goldwater had run in primaries in '64, but what happened is, as I said, many states in 1972 and more in 1976 created primaries and that just carried both parties along and it had important implications for the Republicans as well.
What's happened is I think, because to a large extent because of the internet and social media, cable news, other changes in media, obscure candidates can become well known more easily than in the past and can raise significant funds from small donors much more easily than in the past. This open process that party elites had seemingly been able to steer somewhat effectively in the '80s and the '90s and the early aughts has become messier. Some of the recent nominees have still been of the story that they don't hide support from traditional party elites. Hillary Clinton, of course, the most prominent example. I'd also say Mitt Romney, in 2012.
I would say parties have an important role in democracy. And there's a school of thought that democracy is really people having a choice between candidates and those candidates should be screened by political parties and should represent them. And that the current ethos in American politics though is very populist, very skeptical of elites, any idea that people are, that somebody making a decision for them is a hotly contested.
The Women's March 2020 was held in cities across the country on January 18. What began as a conversation on social media has evolved into a network of groups and organizations that are united in opposition to the Trump administration.
From 2017-2019, Dana Fisher and her research team interviewed participants at Washington, D.C. protests, including the Women's March, March for Our Lives, and the People's Climate March. They asked protesters about their motivations and how marching in the streets translates into longer-term political action. Fisher argues that the groups in the Resistance are the "connective tissue of democracy," bringing together people who are working to make their voices heard and advocate for the environment, reproductive rights, and other causes.
But will the connective tissue hold through the election in November? What about beyond that? Fisher shares her thoughts based on her research on the Resistance and collective organizing more broadly.
Fisher is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland and author of American Resistance: From the Women's March to the Blue Wave, which chronicles the birth and growth of the anti-Trump resistance following the 2016 election.
This episode is a nice follow up to our conversation with Theda Skocpol last week about how the Tea Party transformed Republican politics.
Dana's book, American Resistance: From the Women's March to the Blue Wave
How the Tea Party and the Resistance are upending American politics
Grassroots organizing to reboot democracy
Tracing the past, present, and future of protests
This episode was engineered by Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, edited by WPSU's Chris Kugler, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.
Thank you to Meredith Howard at Columbia University Press for sending us a copy of American Resistance and helping arrange an interview with Dana.
I think of the resistance as a counter-movement to the Trump regime. So, it involves people working individually and through organizations to challenge the Trump administration and its policies. And because it's specifically about targeting and the Trump administration and its policies, people in the administration who are writing anonymously in the New York Times or publishing books anonymously calling themselves the resistance don't fit into my definition of resistance.
Well, I think that we could say that this movement is unified also in its progressive ideals. One of the things that unifies all the people who participated is their concern about a number of different progressive issues. And depending on the event where I'm collecting data, different issues take precedence. So obviously, women's rights, reproductive rights are very prominent in the Women's Marches. But at the People's Climate March, climate change is obviously a prominent feature. At the March for Racial Justice, racial justice and Black Lives Matter tends to be a prominent issue.
At the early marches, like the Women's March 2017, a third of the crowd reported never having participated in a protest before. And in fact, I got lots of people telling me, "I've never done this before, but I had to come out after this election." And what we saw in the crowd was very much this sense of group therapy taking place at these events. Organizations, be they civil society organizations, social movement organizations, whatever you want to call them, these groups are the connective tissue of democracy in a lot of ways in America because they do a lot of the work of coordinating among individuals. And so in a lot of cases, the people who at first just felt like they had to get out in the streets, and in many cases, they weren't particularly connected to organizations, then channeled their outrage into real activism through organizations, and in many cases, targeting the election, particularly the midterm election in 2018.
In a lot of ways, the Obama administration, the Obama campaign in 2008, masked over a lot of the problems that we saw with regard to real grassroots infrastructure being built at the local level among the Democratic Party or Democratic Party operatives. And so when we get to 2016, resistance groups in a lot of ways formed to fill the void because there are not a lot of opportunities for local people to get involved in progressive left-leaning activities in their communities.
Distributed organizing is this new way of coordinating and organizing activism and electoral political activism. Let me say that over again. Distributed organizing is a new way of organizing at the local level, and basically, it's coordinated digitally. And it means that it's something new that has only come up as people have become much more connected through all these different technologies that are now available. And distributed organizing means that no longer do people attend meetings and sign up and pay dues to organizations. But instead, they sign up to participate in a specific action, in many cases, a protest, through a website. And all of a sudden, they're on a list, and they're considered a member of an organization that was sponsoring this event.
An optimistic outcome where the resistance succeeds, and there is a Democrat taking office in the White House and continues to be a democratic majority in the House of Representatives and even the long shot democratic majority in the Senate. In that case, I think that it will be a real question about what happens to the resistance, this fragile coalition of organizations that have bonded together and mobilized hundreds of thousands of people across the country to work together across a range of progressive issues will have a very hard time once they're working within an issue based specific political realm because all of a sudden, they're going to have to compete for attention and resources in ways that they don't right now because everybody's just working on defense.
If President Trump is re-elected, I think that we're going to see a resistance, a coalition of groups and individuals, who are extremely frustrated with the idea of what will come for the next four years, another four years of retrenchment. I think as a result of that, we're going to see a resistance that's becoming increasingly confrontational and reactionary. And I think a lot of the people who are willing to go out into the streets are going to be more interested in something less peaceful and more about pushing confrontation.
We are part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.