"Bamboo, Ballots, and Biden" w/Jessica Huseman

Elections are a foundation in our American democracy. They allow us to pick our presidents (sorta), vote for local representatives, and basically give us a voice in this country. You can think of elections like a much more impactful survey from Survey Monkey. However, unlike Survey Monkey, you would be hard pressed to find people willing to storm your office and stop the tallying of the results. This week we talk with someone who knows way more about elections than any human could possibly know. Jessica Huseman is a journalist from Texas who is the editorial director of Votebeat, a nonprofit newsroom and Chalkbeat spin-off which devotes itself to election reporting. She was the lead reporter at ProPublica’s Electionland project, is a frequent guest on CNN discussing election issues and her writings have appeared in The Atlantic, Ms. Magazine and the Dallas Morning News.

We discuss a wide range of issue from the state of election security, to the recent changes in election laws around the country, and then Jessica gives us some really good insight about the religious voting block and why they have been so effective at pushing for policies they believe in.

Guest Bio:

Jessica Huseman is the editorial director of Votebeat, an independent, non-profit newsroom covering voting rights, redistricting and election administration. She teaches investigative journalism at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and New York University, and was previously a reporter for ProPublica, where she led voting and elections coverage.

VoteBeat, is an independent, nonpartisan popup nonprofit newsroom covering local election administration and voting in eight states. If you'd like to support the work they do please visit

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