High Turnout Wide Margins

In January, the HTWM team was invited to record a live episode at the Southern Political Science Association meeting held in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Brianna and Eric sat down with Paul Gronke and Paul Manson of the Elections & Voting Information Center about results of this last year's Local Election Official Survey Project, looking at challenges, attitudes, and job satisfaction.

In January, the HTWM team was invited to record a live episode at the Southern Political Science Association meeting held in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In a fun turn of events, our “guests” put Brianna and Eric on the receiving end of questions – giving them the opportunity to reflect on the administration of the November 2024 general election.

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Mark Kampf, the former clerk in Nye County, Nevada. He stepped into the role in the summer of 2022 after the Nye County Commission voted to move to hand counting ballots and his predecessor resigned. That fall, Kampf proposed a plan for Nye County to hand count during the midterm elections, which faced a legal challenge from the ACLU (...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Trent Tripple in Ada County, Idaho. Trent was integral in implementing the new Ballot Verifier system in Ada County that allows voters to view ballot images and cast vote records side-by-side.  They spoke about how this ballot verifier came to be, how it’s helped decrease distrust in elections in Idaho and how it’s won his office back t...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Sarah Archambault and Margo Guernsey. They are the production team behind the documentary “No Time to Fail,” and of a new documentary, “The Officials” that continues to shine a light on the work of local election officials.  They spoke about why they chose to focus their work on local elections, how they have built a connection to the e...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Peggy McGaugh. She’s the State Representative for the 7th District, which includes Carroll, Linn, Livingston, and part of Ray counties. Before being elected to the House, she served for 33 years in the Carroll County Clerk’s Office.  They spoke about McGaugh’s experience, the benefits of state legislators coming from election administra...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with some new election administrators in the state of Missouri – all of whom have been in the job less than four years, and are now preparing for their first presidential election.  They spoke about Rachel Lightfoot in Polk County, Heather Hall, the Republican Director of the Election Board in Clay County, and Adrienne Lee in Vernon County....

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Jeff Mangan. He’s a former Commissioner of Political Practice in Montana, and one of co-chairs of the Montana Election Observation Initiative [MEOI], a Carter Center-supported nonpartisan election observation effort.  MEOI conducted their first pilot observation during Montana’s June 4th primary in Missoula. You can read the preliminary...

The High Turnout Wide Margins team recently traveled to Portland, Oregon, for a special workshop on State Associations hosted by the Election Center. While there, we were able to have face-to-face conversations with people working in elections across the country. In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Commissioner Tom Hicks, one of the longest serving members of the Election...

The High Turnout Wide Margins team recently traveled to Portland, Oregon, for a special workshop on State Associations hosted by the Election Center. While there, we were able to have face-to-face conversations with people working in elections across the country. In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Jackie Beaudry and Melanie Ryska. They’re both local clerks in Michigan an...

The High Turnout Wide Margins team recently traveled to Portland, Oregon, for a special workshop on State Associations hosted by the Election Center. While there, we were able to have face-to-face conversations with people working in elections across the country. In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Mark Coakley. He’s the General Registrar of Henrico County, Virginia. They...

The High Turnout Wide Margins team recently traveled to Portland, Oregon, for a special workshop on State Associations hosted by the Election Center. While there, we were able to have face-to-face conversations with people working in elections across the country. In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Aaron Ockerman, the Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Election...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Derek Bowens, the Elections Director in Durham County, North Carolina.  They spoke about crafting narratives to help election administrators share and showcase the need for local investment in elections and about the importance of having election administrators that represent and reflect the voters they serve.

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Matthew Fitch. He’s the owner of Merriman River Group, a private election firm that works with organizations such as labor unions and, recently, the Missouri Democratic Party for the presidential preference primary. They spoke about how one manages a private election, including preparation for the ballot box, technology trends, and crea...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Peter Stanyon. He’s the Chief Executive for the Association of Election Administrators, or AEA, in the United Kingdom.  They spoke about the complexities of the UK's election system with its limited time frame for some elections, changes in voter ID law, and the challenges of adding modernization on top of a system originally design...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Gideon Cohn-Postar. He’s the Legislative Director from Issue One, an organization that advocates for cross partisan political reform at the Congressional level – on issues such as social media reform, protecting the safety of election officials and consistent federal funding for elections throughout the country. They spoke a little abou...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Mindy Moretti, the editor-in-chief of electionline, a news source and aggregator for local election administrators that sends out a daily newsletter on all things election news. They spoke about how electionline has evolved over time, what it takes for Moretti to curate it each morning, and a very special partnership that’s coming soon....

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Scott McDonell in Dade County, Wisconsin. After a number of threats and attempted break-ins, McDonell decided that election officials needed a safer and larger space for election processes. So, after traveling around the country to look at other election offices, McDonell chose the new space at an unexpected location- a local brewery. T...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Tommy Gong from Contra Costa County, California. They spoke about Tommy’s long history working in California elections, about his work with Bay Area Votes – and how they’re trying to educate and connect with voters – and a little about his unique connection to Bruce Lee. https://www.facebook.com/BayAreaVotes/

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Fred DeCaro III, one of the two elected Registrars of Voters in Greenwich, Connecticut. They spoke about the unique nature of Connecticut’s election administration, some of the challenges of being a part-time local election administrator, and about what all election administrators could do to rebuild citizen’s trust in the electoral sys...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Heider Garcia in Dallas County, Texas. Garcia has had a couple of high-profile years – first, being highlighted on “ This American Life ” for the inclusive and in-depth way he engaged with people who were skeptical of or had questions about the elections process. Then, after a close result in Tarrant County in 2020, Garcia became the ta...

Last November, the High Turnout Wide Margins team held a live event looking ahead to 2024’s election cycle. Hosts Brianna Lennon and Eric Fey spoke - for the first time – with Secretary of State-level election administrators: Gabriel Sterling in Georgia and Trey Grayson in Kentucky. They spoke about some of the things they’ve learned during their time working in elections.

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Jamie Shew in Douglas County, Kansas. They spoke about how innovations - like RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification technology, can be used for keeping track of all of the equipment needed to run a good, efficient election.  

In this episode, hosts Brianna Lennon and Eric Fey speak with BiaSciLab , a teenage white hat hacker who has been working in the elections cybersecurity space since she was 11 years old. They discuss the role of DEF CON’s Voting Village and ethical hackers in testing and identifying cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the American election system. To learn more about DEF CON’s Voting Village, visit t...

In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Charles Stewart III. He’s the director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab and the co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project ( https://electionlab.mit.edu/). They spoke about the relationship between academics studying elections and the local election administrators who are conducting them, how academic research can...