Risk-limiting audits check the accuracy of a voting machine's election results using a random sample of ballots and statistical analysis.

A technician bought an old, likely-decommissioned voting machine from 2013 and took it apart to see how a would-be hacker might be able to exploit its vulnerabilities. Get a sense of the needs for secure, up-to-date voting machines with this...

Computational methods are convincing a number of judges that some state district maps are drawn illegally. Here's a simple overview of how it works.

In ranked-choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated, and their votes are reassigned until a candidate surpasses 50%, avoiding separate runoff elections.

In this article, Silver weighs the Electoral College's flaws—especially popular-vote inversions—against its advantages, arguing it can limit the effect of surplus votes in heavily one-sided states and encourage broader competition.

Since 1965, federal oversight has blocked thousands of state-level voting changes—including redistricting plans—by requiring approval for measures that could affect minority representation, a process scaled back by the Supreme Court in 2013.

Studies of the 2020 redistricting cycle show that map-drawing strategies locked in predictable outcomes. The result was fewer competitive races, more incumbents shielded from challengers, and representatives less responsive to broader voter preferences.

In several states, citizen or bipartisan panels draw congressional and legislative districts based on neutral criteria like population and geography. Learn more about how these commissions increase competitiveness in elections.

In a 2016 interview, journalist David Daley explained how Republicans used data-driven targeting after the 2010 census to lock in durable advantages, comparing modern gerrymandering strategies to the analytics revolution in baseball.

The USA has seen some crazy elections. Election fraud is vanishingly rare now, but here are the craziest cases of election fraud in U.S. history.

Courts randomly draw prospective jurors from these sources, then mail qualification questionnaires. Those who qualify may be summoned for voir dire, where judges and attorneys question candidates before seating a final jury.

Cracking and packing are gerrymandering techniques. Cracking splits opposing voters across districts, diluting their power. Packing concentrates their votes into a few districts, wasting them in overwhelming majorities for one party.

In Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down the Voting Rights Act's preclearance formula, reducing federal oversight of voting laws—including redistricting—and allowing changes to take effect without prior approval.

Analysts expect GOP-led states to net seats through mid-decade redistricting, while Democratic states face greater hurdles due to commissions and legal limits—tilting the likely outcome toward Republican gains in 2026.

What’s actually at stake when someone casts their vote in a US election? CNN’s “Election 101” podcast series provides ten episodes summarizing some of the basics of democratic elections. The ins and outs of voting are highlighted in 15-minute episodes on voter registration and voting by mail. Additional segments highlight how the electoral system works, how ballots are counted, the Electoral College, why it takes so long to get election results, and more.

Straw polls had been used in the 19th century, but it wasn't until George Gallup's use of random sampling in 1936 that the art became a science.

Beginning in Texas, Republican-controlled legislatures in Missouri, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina moved to redraw maps before 2030—an uncommon mid-decade effort aimed at securing additional congressional seats.

Signed into law in 1965, the Voting Rights Act aimed to end racial discrimination in voting. This resource traces its creation and explains how later court rulings have weakened its enforcement power over time.

After 1877, former Confederate states passed poll taxes, literacy tests, property requirements, and grandfather clauses to disenfranchise Black voters—restrictions that remained in place for nearly a century until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Every 10 years, states redraw congressional and legislative districts based on census data to ensure equal population. Legislatures usually control the process, though some states use independent commissions to curb partisan influence.

Defenders of the Electoral College argue it preserves federalism, forces candidates to build broad national coalitions, magnifies victory margins to reduce recount disputes, and limits incentives for voter fraud by containing the impact of contested ballots within individual states.

The SEAL LLM Leaderboards provide benchmarks for LLMs by assessing them against agentic, frontier, and safety tasks, providing insights into each model's strengths, deficiencies, and failures.

The National Conference of State Legislatures maintains a live tracker showing where mid-decade congressional redistricting is underway, detailing which states are pursuing new maps, the legislative and constitutional methods being used, and how courts are responding as the 2026 elections approach.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 expanded the Department of Justice's power to challenge discriminatory election laws, send federal examiners, and supervise voting changes in areas with histories of voter suppression—although some of these powers have been limited by court rulings since then.

Analysts reported that the 2022 midterms featured the lowest share of competitive congressional districts since 1970, reflecting how modern redistricting has increasingly produced safe seats and reduced voter choice.

When jurors disagree with a law, they can simply vote to acquit regardless of the evidence; however, this practice is rare, and the legal system actively discourages it. This podcast traces its history from a Quaker prayer meeting in London to the LA riots.

The red–blue color scheme used on election night maps emerged in the 20th century as television networks adopted color graphics to make results easier to follow. The association of red with Republicans and blue with Democrats later became standardized.

Lack of Congressional support in funding the National Science Foundation has often been justified by the party's interest in cutting federal deficits and reducing waste for seemingly frivolous research projects. However, an analysis of NSF grant data from 1992 to 2018 shows that awards were given to Democratic constituencies at disproportionately higher rates than to Republican ones, despite a lack of evidence of partisanship in proposal reviews.