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.

The purchase of this ebook edition does not entitle you to receive access to the Connected eBook on CasebookConnect. You will need to purchase a new print book to get access to the full experience including: lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities, plus an outline tool and other helpful resources. Election Law and Litigation: The Judicial Regulation of Politics

Bush v. Gore brought to the public's attention the significance of election law and the United States Supreme Court's role in structuring the rules that govern how campaigns and elections function in America. In this book, Brian K. Pinaire examines one expanding domain within this larger legal context: freedom of speech in the political process, or, what he terms, electoral speech law. Specifically, Pinaire examines the Court's evolving conceptions of free speech in the electoral process and then traces the consequences of various debates and determinations from the post-World War II era to the present. In his analysis of the broad range of cases from this period, supplemented by four recent case study investigations, Pinaire explores competing visions of electoral expression in the marketplace of ideas, various methods for analyzing speech dilemmas, the multiple influences that shape the justices' notions of both the potential for and privileged status of electoral communication, and the ultimate implications of these Court rulings for American democracy.

The U.S. Supreme Court—at least until Bush v. Gore—had seemed to float along in an apolitical haze in the mind of the electorate. It was the executive branch and the legislative branch that mucked about in politics getting dirty, the judicial branch kept its robes—and nose—clean. The U.S. Supreme Court and the Electoral Process makes it abundantly clear however that before, during, and after the judicial decision that made George W. Bush the President of the United States, everything was, is, and will likely be, politics-including the decisions handed down by the highest court in the land. This revised and updated edition takes into account not only the recent famous (or infamous, depending on the reader's point of view) judicial decision on the Presidency, but a myriad of others as well in which the U.S. Supreme Court has considered the constitutionality of a wide range of issues involving voting and elections, representation, and political participation. Practitioners and academics in both law and political science examine a number of court actions that directly affect how we choose those who govern us, and how those decisions have affected our electoral politics, constitutional doctrine, and the fundamental concepts of democracy, including: racial redistricting, term limits, political patronage, campaign finance regulations, third-party ballot access, and state ballot initiatives limiting civil liberties. Of the first edition, CHOICE said, The U.S. Supreme Court and the Electoral Process "plumbs the Supreme Court's constitutive apolitical role as 'primary shaper of the electoral system' and reveals the pervasive involvement of the Court in the political process."

"A summary of judicial precedent on election issues other than campaign financing"--Cover.

THIS CASEBOOK contains a selection of U. S. Supreme Court decisions that discuss and analyze issues surrounding election law and the right to vote. This Volume covers cases spanning from 1946 to 1974. Volume II covers cases spanning from 1976 to 2010.Undeniably the Constitution of the United States protects the right of all qualified citizens to vote, in state as well as in federal elections. A consistent line of decisions by this Court in cases involving attempts to deny or restrict the right of suffrage has made this indelibly clear. It has been repeatedly recognized that all qualified voters have a constitutionally protected right to vote, Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, and to have their votes counted, United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383. In Mosley the Court stated that it is "as equally unquestionable that the right to have one's vote counted is as open to protection. . . as the right to put a ballot in a box." 238 U. S., at 386. The right to vote can neither be denied outright, Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347, Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268, nor destroyed by alteration of ballots, see United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 315, nor diluted by ballot-box stuffing, Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385. As the Court stated in Classic, "Obviously included within the right to choose, secured by the Constitution, is the right of qualified voters within a state to cast their ballots and have them counted . . . ." 313 U. S., at 315. Racially based gerrymandering, Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, and the conducting of white primaries, Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73, Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461, both of which result in denying to some citizens their right to vote, have been held to be constitutionally impermissible. And history has seen a continuing expansion of the scope of the right of suffrage in this country. The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government. And the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 US 533 (1964).

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.

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.

Voting is simple in the United States, right? The process of voting (organizing, running and tabulating the results of a popular election) is, in fact, a highly contested act whose forms, meanings, and practical boundaries are open to widely differing interpretations. From questions of who can vote to the tricky problem of accurately counting the votes, popular democracy is still a work in progress in the United States. Add in the complexities of politics and the picture becomes even more complicated. Taking a chronological approach to the topic, The Supreme Court and Elections explores the ways that the Court has struggled with these questions. From the earliest days of the Union when the Supreme Court refused to address the topic, to the early struggles with the Fourteenth Amendment’s impact on the question of who can vote, to the rise and fall of race-based disenfranchisement, to our recent issues of proper districting, campaign finance reform and the struggle to find a workable voting technology, the essay and documents in this reference illuminate the multifaceted nature of voting and election laws. At the same time, this title provides in-depth analysis of the impact of the Court in shaping this ongoing history. Topics addressed in The Supreme Court and Elections include the following: The Nature of Election Law/Voting Rights and the Impact of the Court Impact of the Civil Rights Amendments Voting in the late 19th And early 20th centuries Disenfranchisement and the Court Redistricting cases Majority-Minority districts Campaign finance reform Bush v. Gore and beyond This title also interweaves select sections of primary source documents in an easy-to-follow format: The U.S. Constitution The Voting Rights Act (1965) and the later Amendment (1982) Excerpts from Federal Voting Statutes Supreme Court cases President Lyndon Baines Johnson excerpts Contemporaneous news articles Court Briefs Focusing on the practical problems of U.S. voting and its complex development within the framework of the political branches of the government, students and researchers will benefit from the clear picture painted by the author of the current elective structure. Essay and document based, The Supreme Court and Elections is the definitive reference on the application of U.S. law on Americans right to vote and the resulting participatory democracy.