Despite great fears that it would be marred by considerable administrative challenges, the 2024 election was well-run and smooth.  However, controversies and conflict that did not receive attention given the comfortable margin of victory have signaled vulnerabilities for the 2026 election related to mail-in ballots, threats to polling places, and late counting of ballots. New executive orders and other novel threats to election administration and the seating of victorious House candidates are creating confusion as to whether the 2026 election will be run under the same rules as its predecessors.  This talk will canvas the problems of 2024, the emerging threats of 2025, and the path for building resilience for the 2026 election.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Nate Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Senior Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute.  He is co-Director of the Stanford Law AI Initiative and founded the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, the Program on Democracy and the Internet and the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.  He served as the Senior Research Director of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration and has been appointed by courts on numerous occasions to draw congressional and legislative redistricting plans.  His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellow, examines the impact of social media and artificial intelligence on democracy and elections.   

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to the William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.