11.02.18
Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 91: Voter Experience


With the 2018 midterm elections approaching, why is it so hard to vote, especially for African Americans and other likely Democratic voters?

Michael says: 

I don’t have a whole lot of respect for the competency of Republicans… But man oh man, Republicans are brilliant at experience design if the experience is stopping their political opponents from voting. It’s just remarkable the amount of energy and subtle ingenuity they put into it.

Also mentioned this week: 

Photograph: Marjory Collins, Showing a Negro how to vote at the polls on election day, Olney, Maryland (1942), via Photogrammar

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Posted in: Politics, The Observatory




Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

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