When you buy a car, you have some reasonable expectation that the car will be safe to drive because manufacturers are required to perform a series of standard tests by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). When an airline buys an airplane, and when you fly on that airplane, we can reasonably expect that that airplane is safe to fly because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates airplane designs, manufacturing, and even the airworthiness of individual airpla...
20 May 2026
Episode 8 – Tampering with Voting Equipment in Mesa County, Colorado.
Tina Peters is serving a jail sentence for tampering with voting equipment when she was clerk in Mesa County, Colorado. The situation has become particularly political, but what actually happened in Mesa County, Colorado? In this episode, we cover the technology and the facts. How voting works in a vote-by-mail state like Colorado, what Tina Peters actually did, and what actual election risks her actions caused. References: Tina PetersNYT and VoteBeat coverageHow Voting Works is a limited ser...
20 Dec 2025
Episode 7 – Fraud allegations in 2020 and 2024, what to make of them?
Typically, election security experts shy away from engaging with fraud allegations, because the theories are numerous and often lacking in evidence. But it's Christmas time, and you're probably hanging out with family, and surely stories about voting machines and election fraud are bound to come up. You need some cold, hard facts to bring to the table. This is the podcast episode for you. References: https://medium.com/mit-election-lab/the-blue-shift-in-the-2020-election-669a0cffdb2fhttps:/...
9 Oct 2025
Special Episode – Election Office Hours with Professor Michael Alvarez
A special episode of How Voting Works. Last week, I was interviewed by Professor Michael Alvarez. We first met more than 20 years ago when we both worked with the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project. Professor Alvarez has a podcast and video series called Election Science Office Hours, and I was his guest. Check out the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJkiWDh7igk And check out Professor Alvarez's whole video series: https://www.youtube.com/@LCSSPCALTECH How Voting Works is a limit...
16 May 2025
Episode 5 – Post-election audits to check the machines
How do we trust our ballot tabulators? Post-election audits, that's how. Risk-Limiting Audits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk-limiting_auditMore about Risk-Limiting Audits https://risklimitingaudits.org/Professor Halderman's analysis of Antrim County 2020 https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity22/presentation/haldermanForensic Audit of Windham, New Hampshire 2020 https://www.doj.nh.gov/sb-43-forensic-audit How Voting Works is a limited series podcast made by VotingWorks, the only...
12 Nov 2024
Episode 4 – Ballot Marking Devices and Voters with Disabilities
In most democracies other than the United States, voters with disabilities are often required to forgo ballot secrecy in exchange for their right to vote. In the United States, that's considered unacceptable, and in fact it is illegal. This is why we have ballot-marking devices.SourcesCan Voters Detect Malicious Manipulation of Ballot Marking Devices?Voter Verification of BMD Ballots Is a Two-Part Question: Can They? Mostly, They Can. Do They? Mostly, They Don'tCan Voters Detect Errors on The...
21 Oct 2024
Episode 3 – Electronic Voting Machines and the Paper Ballot
For a few years in the early 2000s, the US deployed fully electronic voting machines, also known as DREs, fairly broadly. Today, DREs are mostly gone, replaced by voter-verifiable paper ballots.Sources:https://www.wired.com/2004/11/computer-loses-4500-votes/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/magazine/election-security-crisis-midterms.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/24/us/computer-voting-is-open-to-easy-fraud-experts-say.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/us/high-tech...
9 Oct 2024
Episode 2 – Voting Machines
Let's talk about why we need voting machines in the US, and the specific types of voting machines we use and how they work.The Reality of Full Hand Counts: A Guide for Election Officials, by the Elections GroupHarris County voters wade through longest ballot in the state on first day of early voting, October 2022A Brief Illustrated History of Voting, by Professor Douglas W. JonesTHE 2000 ELECTIONS: THE PALM BEACH BALLOT; Florida Democrats Say Ballot's Design Hurt Gore, New York Times, Novembe...
25 Sept 2024
Episode 1 – The Secret Ballot
Welcome to How Voting Works, a limited series podcast about the mechanics of how we vote in the United States, and in particular about the technology we use to cast our votes.This is Episode 1.The Secret Ballot is the most interesting, profound, and complicated aspect of modern elections. It's also the one requirement that makes everything about elections difficult.References:"One Vote Counts for None", Nov 14th, 2006.https://www.kait8.com/story/5675029/one-vote-counts-for-none/"E-voting 2006...
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Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
10 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 12 / 100
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Quality
3
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
51
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