The New York Times Magazine: How Effective Is the American Electoral System?

The New York Times Magazine: Listen to our Fall Voyages Issue View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, September 21, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( [How Effective Is the American Electoral System?]( By KIM ZETTER AND EMILY BAZELON Image by Javier Jaén for The New York Times Magazine. Dear Reader, I hope you had a good week. I spent mine riveted by the Kavanaugh hearings and thinking about how fragile American democracy can sometimes seem. With midterm elections on the horizon, this week’s issue has two cover stories that examine the effectiveness of the American electoral system. The first, by the contributing writer Kim Zetter, explores the big question: Heading into the midterms and 2020, [how vulnerable is our election infrastructure to hacking]( The answer will alarm you. While legislators have introduced several bills to bolster security in the last few years, Zetter writes that testing system security “still faces hostility and sometimes even legal threats.” The second, by the staff writer Emily Bazelon, looks at the upcoming Florida ballot initiative to [restore voting rights to ex-felons](. Across the country, more than six million people have lost the right to vote because of their criminal records, with more than 1.5 million of them living in Florida. Research has found that reversing disenfranchisement causes citizens to increase their pro-democratic attitudes and behaviors but, writes Bazelon, “that’s an idealistic notion, at odds with current Republican strategy and the intensely polarized national landscape.” Both contain profound truths about justice, redemption and electoral democracy itself: For so long, Americans have held the idea that every vote counts as a simple truth and a foundational premise of our democracy. But there are so many ways that your vote might not count. There’s a lot more to read in this week’s issue, some of which I’ve highlighted below. Onward, Jake Silverstein Editor in Chief [Meet the broadcasting booth tr]( Gary Keith and Ron]( At the end of another miserable season for Mets fans, here’s something to celebrate: a whole entire feature by the writer Devin Gordon on the sublime broadcast organism known as “Gary Keith and Ron.” Under a singular pronoun that unites the three Magi of Mets Nation, Gary Keith and Ron feel like relatives, whom we learn from and who make us laugh. When the Mets haven’t played a meaningful game in months, they are one of the only reasons to keep watching because, writes Gordon, “you never know what someone (Keith) might say.” [Deborah Eisenberg, Chronicler of American Insanity]( In this charming profile, Giles Harvey writes how Deborah Eisenberg has developed one of the most original and accomplished bodies of work in contemporary literature. It takes Eisenberg about a year to write a short story; so the occasion of her new collection, “Your Duck Is My Duck” — her first new material in 12 years — is all the more special. The 72-year-old captures a record of what American life feels like right now, “of the effects of the current American insanity on the central nervous system,” Harvey writes. The last section, especially the final paragraph, will make you eager for (or appreciative of) your old age. [Those Who Can’t Forget]( The rows of white marble headstones at Arlington National Cemetery speak to the scale of United States military service across generations and tell something of its human toll. One part of the cemetery — a rectangular, 14-acre portion known as Section 60 — holds roughly 900 service members killed in the still-active wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here, people gather to grieve and to celebrate and to pray, to leave mementos and letters and photographs and to share stories with other members of a small and often overlooked class of Americans: families who have lost someone from wounds or illnesses related to the post-9/11 wars. NYT Mag Labs and At War collaborated on a special report for print and online that follows nine families whose lives are now rooted here at Section 60. [Photographing Past Stereotype]( By TEJU COLE The evolution of the photographer Cristina De Middel maps the complex process of shedding clichés. [New Sentences: From ‘The New Rules of Coffee’]( By SAM ANDERSON Humans will always find a way to overcomplicate even the simplest things. [Which Kinds of Foods Make Us Fat?]( By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS In lab animals, at least, it’s high-fat — but not super-high-fat — diets that lead to obesity. [The Last Great Tomato Salad of the Year]( By TEJAL RAO For the chef Preeti Mistry, cooking is a way to express her complex perspective as a first-generation Indian-American. If you enjoy our newsletter forward this email to a friend and help the magazine grow. Getting this from a friend? [Sign up to get the magazine newsletter](. Let us know how we can improve at: [newsletters@nytimes.com](mailto:newsletters@nytimes.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback%20NYT%20Magazine) Make sure to sign up for the [At War newsletter]( A weekly email about the experiences and costs of war with stories from Times reporters and outside voices. FOLLOW NYTimes [Twitter] [@nytmag]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »]( | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's The New York Times Magazine newsletter. 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