In this urgent wake-up call, Philip Coggan shows how democracy today faces threats that we ignore at our own risk. Amid the turmoil of the financial crisis and high debt levels, it is easy to forget that the ultimate victim could be our democracy itself. Tracing democracy's history and development, Coggan revisits the assumptions on which it is founded. What exactly is democracy? Why should we value it? What are its flaws? And could we do any better? Coggan proposes ideas for change and improvement to the system itself so the next vote we cast will not be the last.

On cover, the word "right" has an x drawn over the letter "r" with the letter "f" above it.

For many of us, the presidential election of 2000 was a wake-up call. The controversy following the vote count led to demands for election reform. But the new voting systems that were subsequently introduced to the market have serious security flaws, and many are confusing and difficult to use. Moreover, legislation has not kept up with the constantly evolving voting technology, leaving little to no legal recourse when votes are improperly counted. How did we come to acquire the complex technology we now depend on to count votes? Douglas Jones and Barbara Simons probe this question, along with public policy and regulatory issues raised by our voting technologies. Broken Ballots is a thorough and incisive analysis of the current voting climate that approaches American elections from technological, legal, and historical perspectives. The authors examine the ways in which Americans vote today, gauging how inaccurate, unreliable, and insecure our voting systems are. An important book for election administrators, political scientists, and students of government and technology policy, Broken Ballots is also a vital tool for any voting American.

The fascinating tale of how a bipartisan coalition worked successfully to lower the voting age “Let Us Vote!” tells the story of the multifaceted endeavor to achieve youth voting rights in the United States. Over a thirty-year period starting during World War II, Americans, old and young, Democrat and Republican, in politics and culture, built a movement for the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution, which lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen in 1971. This was the last time that the United States significantly expanded voting rights. Jennifer Frost deftly illustrates how the political and social movements of the time brought together bipartisan groups to work tirelessly in pursuit of a lower voting age. In turn, she illuminates the process of achieving political change, with the convergence of “top-down” initiatives and “bottom-up” mobilization, coalition-building, and strategic flexibility. As she traces the progress toward achieving youth suffrage throughout the ’60s, Frost reveals how this movement built upon the social justice initiatives of the decade and was deeply indebted to the fight for African American civil and voting rights. 2021 marks the fiftieth anniversary of this important constitutional amendment and comes at a time when scrutiny of both voting age and voting rights has been renewed. As the national conversation around climate crisis, gun violence, and police brutality creates a new call for a lower voting age, “Let Us Vote!” provides an essential investigation of how this massive political change occurred, and how it could be brought about again.

"An expert on US election law presents an encouraging assessment of current efforts to make our voting system more accessible, reliable, and effective"--

Desmond Meade was chosen as a MacArthur Fellow in 2021 The inspiring and eye-opening true story of one man’s undying belief in the power of a fully enfranchised nation. “You may think the right to vote is a small matter, and if you do, I would bet you have never had it taken away from you.” Thus begins the story of Desmond Meade and his inspiring journey to restore voting rights to roughly 1.4 million returning citizens in Florida—resulting in a stunning victory in 2018 that enfranchised the most people at once in any single initiative since women’s suffrage. Let My People Vote is the deeply moving, personal story of Meade’s life, his political activism, and the movement he spearheaded to restore voting rights to returning citizens who had served their terms. Meade survived a tough childhood only to find himself with a felony conviction. Finding the strength to pull his life together, he graduated summa cum laude from college, graduated from law school, and married. But because of his conviction, he was not even allowed to sit for the bar exam in Florida. And when his wife ran for state office, he was filled with pride—but not permitted to vote for her. Meade takes us on a journey from his time in homeless shelters, to the exhilarating, joyful night in November of 2018, when Amendment 4 passed with 65 percent of the vote. Meade’s story, and his commitment to a fully enfranchised nation, will prove to readers that one person really can make a difference.

The Last Vote is a wake-up call showing why we cannot afford to take democracy for granted, from Philip Coggan, award-winning author of Paper Promises and The Money Machine Can we afford to take democracy for granted? It's now so much a part of our lives that we could be forgiven for thinking it mainly takes care of itself. Almost half the world's population now lives in a democratic state, while some Western democracies have now had universal suffrage for almost a century and have endured through even the most severe of global upheavals. In The Last Vote, Philip Coggan shows how democracy today faces threats that we ignore at our own risk. Amid the turmoil of the financial crisis, high debt levels, and an ever-growing gap between the richest and the rest, it is easy to forget that the ultimate victim could be our democracy itself. Tracing democracy's history and development, from the classical world through the revolution of the Enlightenment and on to its astounding success in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Coggan revisits the assumptions on which it is founded. What exactly is democracy? Why should we value it? What are its flaws? And could we do any better? The Last Vote is a wake-up call, and an illuminating defence of a system, which, in Churchill's words, is the worst possible form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. Reasoned, lucid and balanced, Coggan's argument parrots neither the agenda of left nor right, but calls for us all to work together to ensure we don't end up in an even greater mess than we're in today. Finally, he proposes ideas for change and improvement to the system itself so the next vote we cast will not be the last. Praise for Paper Promises: 'This book stands way above anything written on the present economic crisis' Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan 'Bold and confident... This book should be taken very seriously' John Authers, Financial Times 'The most illuminating account of the financial crisis to appear to date ... written with a lucidity that conveys deep insights without a trace of jargon' John Gray, New Statesman Philip Coggan was a Financial Times journalist for over twenty years, and is now the Buttonwood columnist for the Economist. In 2009 he was named Senior Financial Journalist in the Harold Wincott awards and was voted Best Communicator at the Business Journalist of the Year Awards. He is the author of The Money Machine, and Paper Promises, winner of the Spears Business Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Financial Times Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

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.

A compelling examination of three lesser known--but extremely important--federal voting rights cases in Alabama that ultimately influenced the language of the Voting Rights Act. Reveals how each case helped pave the way for the dramatic expansion of federal power in combating racist rules designed to keep blacks out of the polling booth.

This cultural history of voter turnout campaigns in early 20th century America sheds light on the problems that persist in democratic participation today. In the 1920s, America experienced low voter turnout at a level not seen in nearly a century. Reformers responded by launching massive campaigns to "Get Out the Vote.” Yet while these campaigns advocated civic participation, they also promoted an exclusionary message that transformed America’s political culture. By the late 1920s, "civic" would be practically synonymous with "middle class" and "white." At the time, weakened political parties, ascendant consumer culture, labor unrest, Jim Crow, widespread anti-immigration sentiment, and the new woman suffrage all raised serious questions about the meaning of good citizenship. Through techniques ranging from civic education to modern advertising, middle-class and elite whites worked in the realm of culture to undo the equality that constitutional amendments had seemed to achieve. Richly documented with primary sources from political parties and civic groups, popular and ethnic periodicals, and electoral returns, The Big Vote examines the national Get-Out-the-Vote campaigns as well as the internal dynamics of specific campaigns in New York City, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Birmingham, Alabama.