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High Turnout Wide Margins

Co-hosts Brianna Lennon, county clerk in Boone County, Missouri and Eric Fey, director of elections in St. Louis County, Missouri, talk to subject-matter elections experts and local election administrators to ask the questions that are most meaningful to their work and talk with colleagues about how to best approach issues like voter education, cybersecurity, and integrity.

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From the High Turnout Wide Margins team:
High Turnout Wide Margins has officially wrapped a 26-episode second season. The second season won four prestigious awards this year: a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, a National Headliner Award, a Public Media Journalist Association Award, and a Missouri Broadcasters Association Certificate of Merit.

The importance of High Turnout Wide Margins is two-fold. The first, as well as the original goal of the podcast, is to give voice to the actual people running elections at the local level. We have heard from local election administrators throughout the country that this podcast has become a regular listen and the podcast has even been used in the training of election staff throughout the country. Second, HTWM educates and provides valuable insight into the process of elections for everyday voters. While voters may be aware of the electoral college, Congress, etc., this podcast draws back the curtain so that the day-to-day work of election administration can be understood more thoroughly.

Thank you for making Season 3 of HTWM a reality. With your support, a successful Kickstarter campaign and fundraising, High Turnout Wide Margins returns.

Latest Episodes
  • 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.You can learn more about electionline and sign up for the daily newsletter at https://electionline.org/
  • In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Scott McDonell in Dane 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. They spoke about how a County Clerk embarks on a project of this size, keeping election workers safe, and maintaining trust with other clerks across the state.
  • 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 system.
  • 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.
  • 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 their YouTube page – here.
  • 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 become functional tools for election administrators to use and how academic-election administrator collaboration could impact future elections.
  • In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with John Lindback. He’s been involved in elections administration for many years and was the first Executive Director of ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center, after its creation in 2012.They spoke about the creation of ERIC, how the multi-state voter-registration monitoring collaborative functions, as well as some of the challenges that come along with maintaining the integrity of a voter list.