News and Analysis
Read the latest news, commentary, and analysis from the Ash Center.
Newest
Media Release
New Report Finds Mail Ballot Rejection Rates Decreased in 2020
In Ensuring All Votes Count: Reducing Rejected Ballots, Wang and Alitamirano tackle the questions: Were mail ballots rejected at a higher rate in 2020 compared to previous years? What impact did policy changes, the political environment, and voter outreach have on mail ballot rejection rates in such an extraordinary election year?
Media Release
Former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki to Join Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center as Senior Fellow
The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School announced the appointment of former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki as a senior fellow. Marzouki, Tunisia’s first post-Arab spring head of state will join the Ash Center’s Democracy in Hard Places initiative.
Commentary
To Fix Tech, Democracy Needs to Grow Up
There isn’t much we can agree on these days. But two sweeping statements that might garner broad support are “We need to fix technology” and “We need to fix democracy.”
Feature
Present at the Beginning: Over 50 Years at the Kennedy School
Mark Moore began his career at the Kennedy School as a member of the inaugural class of the Master in Public Policy (MPP) program. He was subsequently awarded one of Harvard’s first Ph.D.s in public policy before being appointed assistant professor in 1974, and the Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice Policy and Management in 1979. On the eve of his retirement, Moore, now a Research Professor at HKS, sat down with the Ash Center to discuss his work and share his unique perspective on the Kennedy School’s decades-long evolution.
Q+A
What to expect from House Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan
Speaker Pelosi’s trip is likely to engender ire from China, much of which will be directed at Taiwan anticipates Ash Center Fellow Wenchi Yu.
Feature
How to design term limits for the Supreme Court
Scholars conclude terms limits would help restore ideological balance to the nation’s highest court
Q+A
“Lengthy and convoluted and vague”: HKS historian Alex Keyssar on the problems with the Electoral Count Act and how proposed reforms could fix it
A law written in post-Civil War America to try to avoid problems with the counting of Electoral College votes has never been very clear. A new set of proposed reforms tries to change that.
Feature
What happens when sports stadiums and arenas are used as polling sites?
Research shows professional sports stadiums and arenas are not only ideal polling locations, but support for their use in elections reaches across the aisle and benefits the team.
Podcast
Consumers vs. Citizens in Democracy’s Public Sphere
Attempting to balance the challenging trade-offs between individual rights and our obligations to one another.