The Election Science Office Hours Podcast

Kim Alexander is a true pioneer in the promotion of secure and usable voting technology and good democratic practices. This is a great conversation, covering a lot of important current topics in election integrity. One of the really interesting conversations engages with the important question about why it takes California so long to count ballots and certify election outcomes, with Kim's proposals for how to speed the process up while preserving voter rights. She also talks about her use of music to engage voters. And she asks me a quite interesting question!

In this episode, I talk to Bob Page, the Orange County Registrar of Voters. Right now, Bob and his team are gearing up for the June 2026 primary election in OC, and we talk about what they are doing to prepare for the election. A theme that runs through this episode is the importance of communications, we talked at length about how election officials today need to be excellent communicators.

Join me as I talk with Natalie Adona, the Marin County Registrar of Voters, as we discuss how her office is preparing for the upcoming primary in June - and the general election in November. We also discuss misconceptions about voting by mail in California and other important election topics!

Join me as I talk with Steve Trout, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Clear Ballot. We discuss his current role at Clear Ballot, focusing on the challenges and opportunities for the election technology industry. We dig into how to build strong and lasting collaborations between the voting technology industry and the research community!

This is a great episode, join me as I talk with Mike Moser about election security. We have a wide-ranging conversation, considering current election security issues, how best to help election officials with cybersecurity, and the benefits and risks that AI brings when considering election security.

Just me as I talk with Cameron Wimpy, from Arkansas State University, as we discuss the unique problems that election officials face in rural parts of the U.S. Rural election administration is an understudied problem, and we discuss why it is understudied, how to solve that problem, and what this is a critical issue for anyone interested in how elections are conducted in the U.S.

Join us for this amazing episode with Michael Spector and Delaney Gomen, both from Georgia Tech. We talk about their new paper that uses innovative HCI methods to learn from election officials about usability issues they face using election technology. Along the way we talk quite a bit about how to improve trust between the research and elections community, so that more productive collaborations like this can be launched.

Join me as I talk with Betsy Sinclair about the work that we did in 2025 on AI and elections. In 2025 we organized and hosted two major conferences, bringing together researchers, election officials, election technologists, and stakeholders. Our first conference focused on information and elections, and then the second on how new AI technologies might be used to improve election administration. Throughout we also talked about the risks of new AI technologies for election administration.

In this episode, I talk with three experts on military and overseas voting, Casandra Hockenberry, Paul Lux, and Hilary Rudy. We talk about the hurdles that military and overseas voters face when they try to received and return their ballots. We also discuss the procedural and technological solutions that help mitigate and resolve these hurdles.

Join me as I talk with USC prof Christian Grose, as we go over the November 4, 2025 election results. What happened in the major races across the US on November 4th, including in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia. We also focus attention on California's Proposition 50. What do these election results mean, both for where American politics stands today, and for what we might expect in the 2026 midterm elections?

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

Join me as I talk with Justin Levitt, from LMU Law School, as we discuss President Trump's executive orders on elections, the legal wrangling now going on regarding those executive orders, and what we can expect to happen regarding these executive orders between now and the 2026 midterm elections.

In this episode, originally recorded on March 12, 2025, I talk with Paul Gronke (Reed College) and Paul Manson (Portland State University) about their Elections & Voting Information Center and most importantly about their ongoing local election officials survey project. What do we know about local election officials? How do their like their jobs? How do you go about surveying local election officials? This is a great episode for anyone interested in election science and how elections are run in the US.

This is the final episode of Election Science Office Hours for 2024! Here I talk with Jennifer Morrell, one of the world's leading experts on election auditing. We had a wide-ranging conversation about the past, present, and future of election auditing in the U.S. Make sure to listen, as Jennifer provides great insights about innovations in election auditing and also gives some great research tips for the election science geeks in the audience!

In this episode I talk with Tommy Gong, Deputy Clerk-Recorder of Contra Costa County. We talk about how he and his colleagues worked to prevent the spread of election misinformation and rumors in 2024, the financing of election administration, and Tommy's "trifecta" of efforts to improve voter trust in elections.

Our second post-election episode, with Christian Grose (University of Southern California) and Andrew Sinclair (Claremont McKenna College). Election reforms like ranked choice voting, primary reforms, and redistricting commissions, were on the ballot in many states in the 2024 election. Many of these measures failed or struggled with voters. Why? What might these struggles portend for the future of election reform at the ballot box? How can election reformers respond? This is a great episode if you are interested in election reform. Note that there is a little feedback in the first few seconds of the audio, per our usual policy we have not edited the audio track to bring you the entire conversation, as it occurred.

Charles Stewart III from MIT joins me, on the morning after the November 5th 2024 election. We discuss his work on the CBS Decision Team, why the administration of the election went smoothly, what to expect from federal election reform, and some ideas for research coming out of the 2024 election.

Since 2000, we've developed a unique way to observe polling place and voting center operations. There are specific things we look for, and ways we go about conducting our studies of how effective in-person voting procedures and technologies operate in a state or county. Listen to this short episode to learn more!

This is an interesting in-depth conversation wth Dean Logan, LA County's Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. We talk about his job managing elections (and lots of other interesting processes) in the nation's largest and most diverse jurisdiction. We talk about early voting, election misinformation, and how LA County has built an accessible and secure voting system that works in this diverse community. With only a week until Election Day 2024, it was an honor to have Dean join me for this wonderful conversation.

Guests in this episode are Lisa Bryant, Christian Grose, Dean Logan, Efren Perez, and Sara Sadhwani. This is a special episode of Office Hours. The Election Roundtable was recorded in-person (with an audience) on October 11 at Caltech. Prof. Mike moderated the conversation and we have a Q&A at the end with audience participants. This event was co-sponsored by the Caltech Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy.

This is a special episode of Office Hours. Here I walk through some of the recent research we have done a Caltech on election misinformation, and provide guidelines and suggestions for election officials and stakeholders about how to deal with misinformation as we enter the final period of the 2024 election. This podcast is relevant for everyone, as we will all run into friends, colleagues, and family who are convinced by some election rumor or myth. See our project website for more information: https://www.protectingtheelection.us/blog-3-1/election-misinformation-guidelines

What is Office Hours? What's the goal of this podcast? Join me for a brief introduction to Office Hours, and learn a little about your host!

Listen to this special episode of Office Hours! In this episode we talk with three election technology providers: Ben Adida (Executive Director of VotingWorks), Sara Cutter (Executive Director of the American Council for Election Technology), and Ed Smith (Vice President, Election Solutions of the MTX Group). We talk about how the election technology industry helps election officials as they prepare for the upcoming election and their concerns about potential issues this fall. Note that as our podcast is presented unedited, there are a few places where one of our guests had some technical issues, so please be patient with our unedited podcast!

Another great episode of Office Hours! Here we talk about the challenges of running a presidential election in a large and diverse SoCal county. Bob also talks about how they secure the voting by mail process, and dealing with election disinformation in this election.

Join me for a wide-ranging conversation with Barb Byrum, the Ingham County (MI) Clerk. Barb is in the thick of the election in one of our most important battleground states. We talk about the challenges running an election in the current political environment and how she deals with election disinformation.

Join us for a conversation with Natalie Adona, Nevada County CA Recorder/Registrar of Voters.  We talk about how elections are run in Nevada County, Natalie's experiences in the 2020 presidential election, and issues that she is focusing on for 2024.  We also talk about election misconceptions, including non-citizen voting, and how election officials can try to talk about those misconceptions with voters in their jurisdictions.

During this inaugural episode, Professor Alvarez chats with retired Orange County, California Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley on his view of risks election administrators must contend with and what he sees as strategies for mitigating those risks for Election 2024.