Election law is a dynamic and quickly growing field that has garnered enormous public interest. It is a subject of great practical importance to lawyers and law students, with increasing litigation and several important decisions from the Supreme Court in recent years. Tokaji's Election Law in a Nutshell provides a succinct and thorough description of the law governing voting rights, elections, and the political process in the United States. The topics addressed include the fundamental right to vote, gerrymandering, minority voting rights, ballot access, voter identification, recounts, direct democracy, and campaign finance. The Nutshell covers the constitutional law in these areas, including rights of free speech and equal protection, as well as the Voting Rights Act and other essential statutes. It addresses Shelby County v. Holder and other cases from the 2012-13 Supreme Court Term.

The third edition of Election Law in the American Political System pivots to place front and center the profound challenges to American democracy posed by the emergence of a political environment in which repeated, partisan attempts to undermine longstanding democratic processes have become a new norm of political contestation. Like prior editions, it offers an easy to teach, student-friendly, intellectually rich casebook with comprehensive coverage of the legal rules and doctrines that shape democratic participation in the 21st century American political system. New to the Third Edition: Addresses the perils currently facing American democracy including democratic backsliding, authoritarianism, and election denialism Contextualizes the problem of democratic backsliding as a global phenomenon Provides important intellectual framework and scaffolding by explaining the joint pathologies of illiberalism and populism and how they affect American democracy Updated caselaw with partisan gerrymandering: Rucho v. Common Cause; the Voting Rights Act: Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee; racial gerrymandering: Cooper v. Harris; and political speech: Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky Professors and students will benefit from: Organization that tracks the lifecycle of the democratic process from distribution of the franchise to processes and relationships of representation and through parties, candidate selection, campaign speech and spending, to electoral administration. Multidisciplinary coverage of theories of voting behavior, alternative electoral systems, evolution of judicial review of democratic processes, and developments concerning the advent of “fake news” in election campaigns. Comprehensive coverage of developments in partisan gerrymandering, the Voting Rights Act, judicial campaigning, campaign finance, and electoral administration. A focus on the current problems facing American democracy. A rich set of theoretical materials to help facilitate teaching and engagement of doctrine Well-organized and self-contained units that allow professors to cover topics in the depth and breadth they prefer. Clear, concise, and informative notes to help focus student attention on the issues that are relevant.

Governments need rules, institutions, and processes to translate the will of the people into functioning democracies. Election laws are the rules that make that happen. Yet across the world various countries have crafted different rules regarding how elections are conducted, who gets to vote, who is allowed to run for office, what role political parties have, and what place money has in the financing of campaigns and candidates. The Routledge Handbook of Election Law is the first major cross-national comparative reference book surveying the electoral practices and law of the major and emerging democracies across the world. It brings together the leading international scholars on election law and democracy, examining specific issues, topics, or the regions of the world when it comes to rules, institutions, and processes regarding how they run their elections. The result is a rich volume of research furthering the legal and political science knowledge about democracies and the challenges they face. Scholars interested in election law and democracy, as well as election officials, will find the Routledge Handbook of Election Law an essential reference book.

Softbound - New, softbound print book.

Understanding Election Law and Voting Rights is an excellent supplement to any casebook in election law and a concise but thorough treatise. It is designed to provide students in law, political science, and other fields with a coherent, detailed, and accessible introduction to (or review of) election law. As a study aid, the text helps students synthesize and apply doctrine to typical problems and situations faced by practicing attorneys and policymakers. As a treatise, this book also assists scholars and practicing lawyers in understanding the complex statutes and cases that comprise "election law." This treatise explains election-law doctrine while also introducing the theoretical concerns that underlie the debates. Readers will come away from Understanding Election Law and Voting Rights knowing not only the holdings of cases and the meanings of important statutes, such as the Voting Rights Act, but they will also understand the contending views of free speech, equality, judicial authority, and political fairness that are present throughout the field. Understanding Election Law and Voting Rights takes readers through the electoral process, beginning with the right to vote and continuing through the election itself. Along the way, the authors provide thorough explanations of manifold topics, including Congress's power to protect voting rights, the use of race in districting, political gerrymandering, political parties' rights, the place of third parties, free speech and the First Amendment rights to participate in campaigns and run for office, campaign-finance regulation, vote-counting, and the role of courts in adjudicating disputes about political power and challenges to election "irregularities." Throughout the text, the authors explain election-law concepts in language that is easy to understand, even for readers without a background in constitutional law or political science.

This text on election administration and election law discusses the basic framework that governs electoral institutions in the United States. The book unpacks the right to vote, the candidates, districting and gerrymandering, parties and primaries, the Electoral College, campaign finance, and ballot counts and recounts. Each chapter provides a breakdown of rules and procedures in the states, relevant case law, as well as contemporary scholarship in political science, which helps tell us why these rules matter. From the nuts and bolts of apportionment formulas, to the legal reasoning behind court cases, to behavioral research on voter turnout, this book introduces advanced undergraduate or graduate students to the growing body of scholarship on election administration and how our electoral rules matter.

Recent U.S. elections have defied nationwide majority preference at the White House, Senate, and House levels. This work of interdisciplinary scholarship explains how “winner-take-all” and single-member district elections make this happen, and what can be done to repair the system. Proposed reforms include the National Popular Vote interstate compact (presidential elections); eliminating the Senate filibuster; and proportional representation using Ranked Choice Voting for House, state, and local elections.

In the first comprehensive study of election law since the Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore, Richard L. Hasen rethinks the Court’s role in regulating elections. Drawing on the case files of the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist courts, Hasen roots the Court’s intervention in political process cases to the landmark 1962 case, Baker v. Carr. The case opened the courts to a variety of election law disputes, to the point that the courts now control and direct major aspects of the American electoral process. The Supreme Court does have a crucial role to play in protecting a socially constructed “core” of political equality principles, contends Hasen, but it should leave contested questions of political equality to the political process itself. Under this standard, many of the Court’s most important election law cases from Baker to Bush have been wrongly decided.

Behind the deeply contentious 2020 election stands a real story of a broken election process. Election fraud that alters election outcomes and dilutes legitimate votes occurs all too often, as is the bungling of election bureaucrats. Our election process is full of vulnerabilities that can be — and are — taken advantage of, raising questions about, and damaging public confidence in, the legitimacy of the outcome of elections. This book explores the reality of the fraud and bureaucratic errors and mistakes that should concern all Americans and offers recommendations and solutions to fix those problems.

This book is a snapshot of America's voting and electoral practices, problems, and most current issues. The book addresses a variety of fundamental areas concerning election law from a federal perspective such as the Help America Vote Act, lessons learned from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, voter identification, and demographic and statistical experts in election litigation, and more. It is a useful guide for lawyers as well as law school professors, election officials, state and local government personnel, and election workers.