Americans went to the polls in 1864 to cast their votes for president in the middle of a war — a first for a democracy. Union soldiers also enjoyed another first: despite being absent from their hometowns on Election Day, many of them were able to use new processes to participate and vote from afar.

In Episode 3 of our video series Talking Elections, we wanted to take a look at voter education which is an important topic that doesn’t get enough notice in the elections community. There is a lot of information that voters need to know to vote and have their votes counted accurately, from registration deadlines and the documentation they might need to register to the location of polling places, voter identification requirements and how to properly mark their ballots as they’re counted.

A general consensus has emerged among the broader elections community that providing a safe voting environment starts by allowing any voter who wishes to vote by mail to do so. This would reduce the number of voters in confined spaces, either on Election Day, or during early voting periods before Election Day. Achieving an increase in voters balloting by mail is recognized by all as being a steep logistical challenge, requiring the reallocation of resources and redesign of procedures at a pace never before seen in the history of American elections.

Here at the MIT Election Data & Science Lab, we think encouraging new ways to study elections is important — we’ve made it into one of our primary goals for the work we do. Taking scientific approaches and principles and applying them to the practice of democracy can have a significant impact.

As states and the national government take action over the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a large degree of variance in medical preparation across the nation. Contributing to these differences is something political scientists know well: partisan cue-taking.

The MIT Election Lab team has been hard at work at a number of data puzzle pieces since the 2020 election — our ongoing precinct data project, for example.

Imagine for a moment: Election Day has arrived. You’ve taken your lunch break a little early to go vote. (You thought about going before work, but you read up on the report that found lines are longest in the morning, when the polls first open.)