America Votes!: A Guide to Modern Election Law and Voting Rights

Updated and expanded to include the most current issues in this area, America Votes! Second Edition provides key information and important perspectives on election law questions which the courts are currently addressing or about to address. The chapters run the gamut from nuts-and-bolts questions about running elections (what safeguards should jurisdictions put in place to make sure that the vote totals generated by vote-counting machines are accurate?) to larger questions about the best methods for democratic governance (should states be allowed to band together and appoint presidential electors in line with the winner of the national popular vote?). Even questions such as how a third party or independent candidate should be able to gain access to the ballot raise important technical and philosophical questions.

Many chapters in this book discuss both the requirements for compliance with the Voting Rights Act (including its protections for racial, ethnic and language minorities) as well as the wisdom and logic of those provisions. The Act raises complex issues of both statistical nuance and democratic theory. A timely resource for lawyers, professors, election officials, and state and local government election administrators and poll workers, America Votes! Second Edition provides a snapshot of key election and voting rights issues from the perspective of practitioners highly experienced in a wide variety of areas including redistricting, Voting Rights Act, registration, ballot access, reform measures, and much more.