Episode 95: How We Vote

The secret ballot... the decorum of the polling place... the sanctity of the voting booth... these are the trappings of Election Day in the U.S., and they feel as old as time when you pull that curtain closed to (silently) voice your vote. But we haven't always voted this way. In fact, there was a time when Election Day was characterized by violence, drunken revelry and beans in a box. Jill Lepore is a professor of American History at Harvard University, and staff writer at the New Yorker. She joined us to shed some light on the (occasionally dark) history of voting in the U.S., and to explain why things got so quiet.