Hannah Walker
banner
hlw.bsky.social
Hannah Walker
@hlw.bsky.social

mobilizedbyinjustice.com
Political Scientist UT Austin

Political science 48%
Sociology 17%
Pinned
📢 WORKING PAPER ALERT 📢

"Bridges to the Ballot: How Loved Ones Can Mobilize Voters with Criminal Records" w/ @arielrwhite.bsky.social @allipatter.bsky.social & #TylerLudwig

expandingengagement.org/projects/reg... 1/9
Registering Returning Citizens Via Social Ties — ExpandingEngagement
expandingengagement.org
I’m just a small-town political scientist, & it’s still relatively early, but it appears that The Actual Democrats did not Need To Do any of the Things or Learn any of the Obvious Lessons that Ezra Douthglesias said they Must Do & Learn.

www.dropbox.com

Check out this new brief w/ @sentencingproject.bsky.social on how to get people w/ convictions who can vote out to the polls! W/ @blibal.bsky.social @nicoledporter.bsky.social #RobStewart

Summarizes existing and emerging research that partners w/ community orgs already doing the work!

I am concerned that my voting rights class is a history class

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...
Justice Department Will Monitor Elections in California and New Jersey
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Hannah Walker

Reposted by Efrén O. Pérez

Go get ‘em @averrilli.bsky.social!!
Proud to have not one -- but TWO -- UT Austin PhDs on this list. Congratulations Oguzhan Alkan @oguzhan-alkan.bsky.social (advisor: @zeynsom.bsky.social; BA: @buicinmezunlar.bsky.social) and Allison Verrilli @averrilli.bsky.social (advisor: @hlw.bsky.social; BA: @notredame.bsky.social). Hook'em.
2025 APSA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grantees

The American Political Science Association is pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRIG) Awardees for 2025. The APSA DDRIG program provides support to enhance and improve the conduct of doctoral…
Proud to have not one -- but TWO -- UT Austin PhDs on this list. Congratulations Oguzhan Alkan @oguzhan-alkan.bsky.social (advisor: @zeynsom.bsky.social; BA: @buicinmezunlar.bsky.social) and Allison Verrilli @averrilli.bsky.social (advisor: @hlw.bsky.social; BA: @notredame.bsky.social). Hook'em.

Made possible by support from @arnoldventures.bsky.social @publicagenda.bsky.social & @ispsyale.bsky.social

The #ExpandingEngagementLab is stoked to build on this to learn how engage other chronic non-voters!

expandingengagement.org 9/9
ExpandingEngagement
expandingengagement.org

This work was completed in partnership with #GrassrootsLeadership who were integral to making the project happen and who carry on the work -- to that end, the public facing report sets out lessons learned for both academics and organizers 8/9

www.grassrootsleadership.org/vote
Register To Vote: Find out all you need to know about protecting your vote for the 2024 election — Grassroots Leadership
Have questions about voter registration deadlines, requesting absentee or mail-in ballots, or how to vote in-person during early voting or on Election Day?
www.grassrootsleadership.org

But mailers are expensive & impractical & are we even reaching the pop of interest? Does this strategy work if we go straight to justice impacted people themselves?

YES: An on-the-ground relational organizing experiment is encouraging (but v challenging to study, see the paper for details) 7/9

Can we find the active social ties, send them a mailer asking them to register their loved one, and would they do it?

YES! Even people who are not already active organizers can be prompted to get their loved ones to register: 6/9

Would mobilization by loved ones even work if the person in question doesn't value voting?

YES! Qualitative evidence suggests that social ties have lots of tools available to them to engage even skeptical voters 5/9

Are there even any such ties?

YES! Mapping relationships across admin records suggests many system impacted people are connected to others who are active voters... 4/9

So we thought, let's see if we can find them, contact them, enlist their help in mobilizing their people, and test how well it works! (we're ambitious like that 😉)

But would it even work? System impacted people are often surrounded by other non-voters who have high skepticism of the state... 3/9

The working paper & public report synthesize lessons learned from a suite of 2024 projects.

We ask: How can system impacted people be (re)incorporated into electoral politics?

We argue: The politically active loved ones of system impacted people are powerful mobilizers in their communities! 2/9

Punchline: diversity matters! in the simulation, diversity on the bench reduces sentence length for Black defendants

get ‘em Nick!!

He uses and innovative chat experiment to assess whether having diverse colleagues changes the decision making of dominant group members
Another great talk, this time from Nick Ottone @nottone.bsky.social at @priec.bsky.social on the impact of group based diversity on downstream sentencing decisions

(He’s on the market!! Look out, he’s on the way up!!)

She has maps! Keep your eye on her, she’s just getting started #hookem

they do this in an effort to revitalize their communities,
but their interests are out of step with long term residents

Drawing on an array of admin data that allows her to isolate household effects, she finds that gentrifiers move into their new neighborhoods and vote more in local elections
Another great presentation from UT grad @averrilli.bsky.social on her project “Moving in and Mobilizing” about gentrifier behavior in their new neighborhoods @priec.bsky.social

She is a rising star and on the market!

great pol psych work from one of our best, look out for her this job market season!!!

and increases sympathy for more conservative voters in the group while decreasing it for marginalized outgroups…

She finds that being high on respectability politics depresses participation…
Off to a great start at #CUBoulderPRIEC @priec.bsky.social! UT grad @mirandasullivan.bsky.social presenting her excellent work on the impact of respectability politics among Latines… she finds…

(She’s on the market! Keep your eye on this rising star 🌟#hookem)

Good morning everybody! Time for my favorite conference on the planet #BoulderPRIEC @priec.bsky.social (aside from J&IJ obvi 😉)

Texas Republicans have lost their damn minds.