Ballot chronicles the history of ballots used in American elections, their psychological, cultural, and political impact, and the post-2020 bills, laws, and policies that suppress the vote.
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Ballot examines the psychological, cultural, and political significance of voting in an increasingly anti-voting climate. Armed with her personal experiences as a poll worker, electoral organizer, and activist, Anjali Enjeti unspools a timely narrative about the precarious state of the ballot during one of the most tumultuous political eras in US history, and recounts the astonishing events leading up to the 2024 presidential election.
Enjeti lays out the growing challenges for voters in battleground states, where rightwing legislatures have introduced staggering numbers of voter suppression bills and redrawn district lines, all to disenfranchise as many Black and other marginalized voters as possible. As her account of the history and stakes of election integrity shows, the aftershocks of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021 have manifested most egregiously on the four corners of the ballot.
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Ballot packs detailed information and emotional resonance into few words, and at the same time, the book conveys important and timely insight into the democratic process in the United States. The well-crafted sentences and punchy paragraphs are crucial for emphasizing the importance of voting and the precarious state of the ballot. * Chicago Review of Books * An assured, forward-looking rumination on voting in the U.S. offers constructive ideas for the political left. * Kirkus Reviews * Enjeti examines what it means to vote in America today, and how endangered some of our votes truly are in an era of rising voter suppression, partisan redistricting, and disenfranchisement. Brilliant, humane, and useful. * Boston Globe * It is so easy amidst so much of talk of voting to forget what it is to vote. What the right to vote means to you personally and to the country in which you live. Anjali Enjeti has written a moving and brilliant autobiography of her vote that intersects with the history of the right to vote, speaking all the while to the subtext of the times: that bound up in our vote is our lives, and what we mean to each other, our future and our past, our possibilities. I felt a renewed commitment to democracy, and I will reflect on how I didnt know I needed that for some time. I want this book everywhere. * Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel * Anjali Enjeti makes an essential and timely case for voting as a tactic. She welcomes in both skeptics and believers to explain whats at stake when we go to the ballot box and what happens when voting rights are curtailed. A necessary text at this point in human history, I hope that young people especially will read it and that elders will join them. * Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, author of The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred *
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Ballot chronicles the history of ballots used in American elections, their psychological, cultural, and political impact, and the post-2020 bills, laws, and policies that suppress the vote.
1. Ballot Beginnings
2. A Brief History of Ballots
Balls, Viva voce, Paper, Absentee, Touchscreen and Electronic Voting
Machines, Online
3. Ballot Interference
Voter Identification, Absentee Ballots, Voter Helpers, Intimidation and
Policing, Certification Usurpation, Purges, Felony Disenfranchisement
4. Ballot Dilution
Gerrymandering, Multiracial Voting Blocks
5. Ballot Potential
Local Elections, Initiatives
6. Ballot Psychology
Fear and Loathing, Stereotypes, Identities, Influencers
7. Ballot Revolution
Uncommitted, Upheaval, Ultimate
8. Ballot Aftermath
9. The Better Ballot
10. Beyond the Ballot
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Anjali Enjeti is a journalist, activist, election worker, and former attorney based near Atlanta. She is the author of two award-winning books, Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change, and the novel, The Parted Earth. Her other writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Harpers Bazaar, Oxford American, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing in the MFA programs at Antioch University in Los Angeles and Reinhardt University in Waleska, Georgia.
