The Election Science Office Hours Podcast

Professor R. Michael Alvarez, Caltech
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Let’s help voters be confident that their ballots are counted as cast. Honest conversations between host, Caltech prof and election expert Mike Alvarez, and election officials, researchers, and other stakeholders about elections.

  1. FEB 26

    Episode 31: Bridging the Gap: Supporting Election Stakeholders at the Intersection of Administration, Technology, and Security, with Mike Moser

    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.

    54 min

  2. FEB 26

    Episode 30: Trust and Confidence in Elections in Rural America, with Cameron Wimpy

    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.

    52 min

  3. JAN 29

    Episode 29: A Research Driven Look at Claims About New Voting Technology with Michael Specter and Delaney Gomen

    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.

    58 min

  4. JAN 14

    Episode 28: Inside the 2025 Caltech Election Integrity Project Conferences

    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.

    57 min

  5. 12/05/2025

    Episode 27: Ballots Beyond Borders

    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.

    58 min

  6. 11/06/2025

    Episode 26: Christian Grose, The Votes are In!

    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?

    50 min

  7. 10/28/2025

    Episode 25: Jonathan Katz and Partisan Gerrrymandering

    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!

    45 min

  8. 10/01/2025

    Episode 24: Ben Adida, VotingWorks

    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.

    48 min
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Let’s help voters be confident that their ballots are counted as cast. Honest conversations between host, Caltech prof and election expert Mike Alvarez, and election officials, researchers, and other stakeholders about elections.

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