Tech the Vote
Uncanny Valley | WIRED
WIRED
4.1 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2020
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Whether you're prepared for it or not, the United States is hurtling toward another presidential election. Like just about everything in 2020, the voting process has been disrupted by the pandemic. More people than ever are planning to avoid polling places and vote by mail. This has led to a very loud, very political debate about public safety, potential voter fraud, and the role technology plays in the voting process.
This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED senior writer Lily Hay Newman about election security and why the US is so far behind other countries when it comes to online voting.
Show Notes:
Read Lily’s guide on how to vote by mail here. Read more about the partisan hand-wringing about mail-in voting here. Follow all of WIRED’s 2020 election coverage here.
Recommendations:
Lily recommends The US Election Assistance Commission’s state-by-state registration and voting guide. Mike recommends the memoir Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith. Lauren recommends these long sleeve stretch-knit bamboo pajamas from Cozy Earth.
LIly Hay Newman can be found on Twitter @lilyhnewman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our executive producer is Alex Kapelman (@alexkapelman). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone, welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior writer at Wired, and I'm joined |
| 0:12.6 | remotely by my co-host, Wired Senior Editor Michael Callory. Hey, Mike. Hello. Hi. I don't know about you, |
| 0:19.0 | but I'm really missing the studio. Yeah. Especially the lighting. Well, the lighting was probably not its best feature, but, you know, the whole equipment thing and sitting in a room talking to people in real life. I miss that. Breeding the same air. We're also joined remotely this week by Wired Senior Writer Lily Hey Newman. Hey, Lily. Hey, sorry I'm not |
| 0:40.7 | breathing the same air as you guys. We regret that as well. Lily is coming to us from New York City |
| 0:46.4 | where she is, I think, hanging out in some sort of closet right now. It appears for best sound. Is that |
| 0:53.9 | correct? |
| 0:54.5 | Don't blow my cover, Lauren. |
| 0:57.1 | You would not be the first podcaster to be hanging out in a very small and closed space surrounded by clothing and carpeting. |
| 1:04.0 | But we really appreciate you coming on the show this week. Today, we are talking about voting. |
| 1:08.5 | In case you haven't heard, there's a big election coming up in America. |
| 1:12.4 | Later in the show, we're going to talk about why it's 2020 and apps and online voting systems |
| 1:17.8 | still aren't really a thing here in the U.S. But first, we're going to talk about voting by mail, |
| 1:22.8 | because that's the most critical thing to address this year. Due to the pandemic, a lot of people are likely |
| 1:28.2 | going to avoid going to polling places in person. That means that votes cast by mail and ballots |
| 1:34.1 | are expected to be higher than ever. And that has led to an intensely political back and forth |
| 1:40.8 | about election security, the role of the Postal Service, and public safety. |
| 1:46.0 | So, Lily, you wrote a guide to Voting by Mail for Wired.com. Should we actually be concerned about |
| 1:53.0 | voter fraud via mail and ballots? I think the rumors of vote by mail's insecurity have been greatly overstated. |
| 2:04.1 | There are some things to worry about, as with any system. |
| 2:09.4 | There's no perfect security. |
| 2:11.5 | There's always considerations and extra steps you want to take and extra vigilance, all that stuff. But vote by mail is very |
| 2:22.1 | secure from everything we know from all the studies that have been done. Rates of voter fraud are |
... |
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