In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart III examines how the rural-urban divide is reshaping American politics. “Between 2016 and 2020, votes shifted most in the middle of that rural-urban continuum,” writes Stewart. “These regions’ voters are likely to be most prone to shifting again in 2024.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III writes for The New York Times about claims of voter fraud in Philadelphia. “The evidence available in the public record demonstrates on its own that the claim of widespread fraud is itself a fraud,” notes Stewart.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Prof. Charles Stewart III notes that the administration of the 2020 presidential election was a success. “Even as we enter a contentious stretch of litigation, in which every aspect of the election infrastructure will be scrutinized,” writes Stewart, “the U.S. should be thankful for the heroic—and successful—efforts of election administrators around the country.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III speaks with Guardian reporter Sam Levine about what might happen after the polls close on election night. “In most states, the pace of counting and reporting is going to be slowed by a few hours. In some states, they’re going to be feeding more ballots into scanners after the polls close, and that’s going to take some time,” says Stewart. He adds that he believes we’re going to “know more than you think on election night.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III speaks with David Brancaccio of Marketplace about the history of voting technology. “Voting would be very different in the United States without the use of computing technologies,” says Stewart, “much like all of public policy, and actually all of our commercial lives, would be very different without the use of information technology to create the networks to do all of the transactions and allow us to do almost everything we do hundreds of times every day.”
Writing for WBUR, Prof. Charles Stewart III argues that “whether an actual constitutional crisis emerges in the days following the election will depend on the careful, serious counting of every single vote that has been cast. As citizens, we need to be focused on that process, and not on distractions and delays of a desperate candidate.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III speaks with Steve Inskeep of NPR about early voting in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Stewart notes that, thus far, we’re seeing, “the sort of friction we get in a high-energy election on the first few days. Voters are eager to vote, and election officials are learning whether they have enough capacity at their early voting sites. And some places, it looks like they don't.”
MIT Prof. Charles Stewart III and Stanford Prof. Nathaniel Persily write for The Washington Post about a new survey they conducted that finds “registered voters harbor worries about voting in this election that diverge in predictable ways, given their partisan affiliations. Despite these worries, most are confident that their ballots will be counted accurately.”
In an article for The Guardian, Prof. Kathleen Thelen explores how the U.S. media can help ensure the credibility of the upcoming presidential election. “We need bipartisan and authoritative panels to work with the networks as returns start to come in,” write Thelen and her co-authors. “Ideally, the media should create an independent panel of election certification, drawn from a diverse body of experts representing both major parties.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Prof. Charles Stewart III argues that “those out to undermine Americans’ confidence in the mechanics of their democracy are depending on an information void following Nov. 3, which they will try to fill with a torrent of disinformation designed to foment potentially violent conflict. To protect the legitimacy of the outcome, election officials and journalists will need to fill that void with facts about the counting.”
In an article for The New York Times, Prof. Charles Stewart III examines how to ensure that voting is safe and accessible during this year’s presidential election. “We need the campaigns, the leaders with big followings and civil society to point voters to the correct information on all the different ways to vote this November and why each mode is safe and secure,” writes Stewart.
Graduate student Marsin Alshamary writes for The Washington Post about the return of the Baath Party archives to Iraq. “In Baghdad, Iraqi scholars may have greater access to these documents, and an opportunity to put this information to use in fortifying a shared sense of national unity at a time of authoritarian nostalgia and political turmoil,” writes Alshamary.
Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart III examines the risks posed by voting by mail. “The greatest risks of voting by mail are voters’ own mistakes,” writes Stewart. “To minimize this problem, election officials can warn voters that a mistake on their absentee ballot means it won’t be counted — or they can design ballots and instructions using plain language.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III speaks with Audie Cornish of NPR about the security of absentee and mail-in voting. Stewart notes that states that have offered mail-in voting for years, such as Oregon, Washington and Colorado, have not had issues with widespread voter fraud.
Writing for Fortune, graduate student Nina McMurry examines how public health authorities can allay fears about contact tracing apps. “Public health authorities need to make sure that the public understands what the technology is doing,” McMurry and her co-authors write. “Even if an app is privacy-preserving, the public may not perceive it as such.”