Deep Dive with Heather Gerken on Voting
Podcast: Kelly Corrigan WondersPublished On: Tue Nov 03 2026
Description: In honor of the midterm elections, Kelly sits down with Heather Gerken, a longtime constitutional law professor and election law expert who went on to become dean of Yale Law School. Heather later stepped away from academia to lead the Ford Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the country. She spent her career studying elections before giving up tenure to put her ideas into practice, and she pulls back the curtain on what actually threatens a free and fair vote. They talk about the quiet army of election administrators holding the whole system together with almost no support, why mail-in ballots matter to veterans and working parents alike, and the strange, specific ways officials have made it harder to simply register. There’s also a case for why the Electoral College might be the single worst idea still standing, and what one ordinary person can actually do, today especially, to help protect the process.Special thanks to the Aspen Ideas Festival where this episode was recorded.
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