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.

Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.

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.

The 2014 Supplement is available. Professors who adopt this casebook for their course can receive a complimentary copy of the supplement by emailing their request to crutan (at) cap-press (dot) com. Those who are not adopting this casebook can purchase an Amazon Kindle version of these materials. The first edition of Election Law was the first modern casebook on the subject of election law. Now in its fifth edition, the leading election law casebook covers the right to vote and voter turnout, legislative districting, the Voting Rights Act, racial gerrymandering cause of action, ballot propositions, constitutional rights and obligations of political parties, bribery, regulation of campaign speech, campaign finance, and election administration. The streamlined and student-friendly fifth edition of Election Law fully covers developments in election law in the 2012 election season including: extensive coverage of Citizens United, super PACs, and other campaign finance developments; emerging issues in voting rights and redistricting, including coverage of the Texas redistricting and voter identification cases; and new coverage of issues in judicial elections. It will continue to include perspectives from law and political science, and is appropriate in both law and political science courses. The extensive campaign finance coverage makes the book appropriate for a campaign finance seminar as well. Supplement Description The Supplement is up-to-date through the end of the Supreme Court¿s October 2013 term. It includes an edited version of of the Supreme Court¿s new campaign finance case, McCutcheon v. FEC, an edited version of Shelby County v. Holder, and an edited version of the lower court decision in the Alabama redistricting cases which the Supreme Court will hear in the October 2014 term. The Supplement also considers developments in Voting Rights Act litigation after the Supreme Court¿s Shelby County case and covers litigation over citizenship and other state registration and voting requirements under the Elections Clause following the Supreme Court¿s opinion last term in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council. It also covers the new Susan B. Anthony false campaign speech case.