BALLOT
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.
PRAISE
“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.” — The Boston Globe
“An assured, forward-looking rumination on voting in the U.S. offers constructive ideas for the political left.” — Kirkus Reviews
“The well-crafted sentences and punchy paragraphs are crucial for emphasizing the importance of voting and the precarious state of the ballot…a compellingly interwoven personal and political history…” — Chicago Review of Books
“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 votes are our lives, and what we mean to each other, our future and our past, our possibilities. I found a renewed commitment to democracy. I want this book everywhere.” — Alexander Chee, author of How To Write an Autographical Novel
“With Ballot, Anjali Enjeti makes an essential and timely case for voting as a tactic. With accessible and clear prose, Enjeti 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 most especially that young people 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