Description: 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.
Brief description: Ian Bogost is an author and an award-winning game designer. He is Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, Director of Film & Media Studies, and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Bogost is also Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC, an independent game studio, and a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic. Bogost is author or co-author of ten books, including Alien Phenomenology (2012)and Play Anything (2016).
Review Quotes:
"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 didn't 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 what's 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