Download or read book A Vote Is a Powerful Thing written by Catherine Stier and published by Albert Whitman & Company. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: STARRED REVIEW! "This book helps children make the leap from abstract concept to concrete understanding of the importance of these decisions and why voting matters...an inspiring read."—School Library Journal starred review Discover why a vote—even just a single vote—is so important. Callie knows there's a presidential election coming up. Her class is having an election, too, about an issue that affects them all—the class field trip! She's about to witness first-hand what a difference a vote can make—even a single vote—and along the way will find out about the election process and why people have fought for the right to vote throughout history. A great kids’-eye look at the power of the vote.
Download or read book The Fight to Vote written by Michael Waldman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover, the word "right" has an x drawn over the letter "r" with the letter "f" above it.
Download or read book Today on Election Day written by David Leonard and published by Albert Whitman & Company. This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The school gym is a polling place and Bailey, Ren, David, Meg, Aiden, and Isabella know all about Election Day and voting! Bailey helped her Aunt Julia run for a seat on the city council. Aiden goes with his grandpa to vote. David's brother Jake will be voting for the first time. Meg talks about how years ago, some citizens were not permitted to vote. A perfect picture book for future voters of America, Today on Election Day will simultaneously entertain and educate.
Download or read book Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College written by Alexander Keyssar and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-31 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New Statesman Book of the Year “America’s greatest historian of democracy now offers an extraordinary history of the most bizarre aspect of our representative democracy—the electoral college...A brilliant contribution to a critical current debate.” —Lawrence Lessig, author of They Don’t Represent Us Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Congress has tried on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College, and in this master class in American political history, a renowned Harvard professor explains its confounding persistence. After tracing the tangled origins of the Electoral College back to the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Keyssar outlines the constant stream of efforts since then to abolish or reform it. Why have they all failed? The complexity of the design and partisan one-upmanship have a lot to do with it, as do the difficulty of passing constitutional amendments and the South’s long history of restrictive voting laws. By revealing the reasons for past failures and showing how close we’ve come to abolishing the Electoral College, Keyssar offers encouragement to those hoping for change. “Conclusively demonstrates the absurdity of preserving an institution that has been so contentious throughout U.S. history and has not infrequently produced results that defied the popular will.” —Michael Kazin, The Nation “Rigorous and highly readable...shows how the electoral college has endured despite being reviled by statesmen from James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson to Edward Kennedy, Bob Dole, and Gerald Ford.” —Lawrence Douglas, Times Literary Supplement
Download or read book The Right to Vote written by Alexander Keyssar and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 2000, The Right to Vote was widely hailed as a magisterial account of the evolution of suffrage from the American Revolution to the end of the twentieth century. In this revised and updated edition, Keyssar carries the story forward, from the disputed presidential contest of 2000 through the 2008 campaign and the election of Barack Obama. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation of American political history as well as a meditation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life.
Download or read book One Person No Vote written by Carol Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As featured in the documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction Named one of the Best Books of the Year by: Washington Post * Boston Globe * NPR* Bustle * BookRiot * New York Public Library From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, the startling--and timely--history of voter suppression in America, with a foreword by Senator Dick Durbin. In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans.
Download or read book Lillian s Right to Vote written by Jonah Winter and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An elderly African American woman, en route to vote, remembers her family’s tumultuous voting history in this picture book publishing in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As Lillian, a one-hundred-year-old African American woman, makes a “long haul up a steep hill” to her polling place, she sees more than trees and sky—she sees her family’s history. She sees the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and her great-grandfather voting for the first time. She sees her parents trying to register to vote. And she sees herself marching in a protest from Selma to Montgomery. Veteran bestselling picture-book author Jonah Winter and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner Shane W. Evans vividly recall America’s battle for civil rights in this lyrical, poignant account of one woman’s fierce determination to make it up the hill and make her voice heard. "Moving.... Stirs up a potent mixture of grief, anger, and pride at the history of black people’s fight for access to the ballot box." —The New York Times "A much-needed picture book that will enlighten a new generation about battles won and a timely call to uphold these victories in the present." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred "A valuable introduction to and overview of the civil rights movement." —Publishers Weekly, Starred "An important book that will give you goose bumps." —Booklist, Starred
Download or read book Vote for Our Future written by Margaret McNamara and published by Random House Studio. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this charming and powerful picture book about voting and elections, the students of Stanton Elementary School learn how we can find--and use--our voices for change. Every two years, on the first Tuesday of November, Stanton Elementary School closes for the day. For vacation? Nope! For repairs? No way! Stanton Elementary School closes so that it can transform itself into a polling station. People can come from all over to vote for the people who will make laws for the country. Sure, the Stanton Elementary School students might be too young to vote themselves, but that doesn't mean they can't encourage their parents, friends, and family to vote! After all, voting is how this country sees change--and by voting today, we can inspire tomorrow's voters to change the future.
Download or read book V Is for Voting written by Kate Farrell and published by Henry Holt and Company (BYR). This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This playful, though powerful book engages little readers in the tenets of democracy and activism through rhyming text and colorful works of art." —PBS Kids for Parents "An ideal starting point in helping kids to understand elections and voting." —Today.com V Is for Voting is an ABC book that introduces progressive families to concepts like social justice and civil rights and reminds readers that every vote counts! A is for active participation. B is for building a more equal nation. C is for citizens' rights and our duty. D is for difference, our strength and our beauty. An engaging introduction to the tenets of democracy, V Is for Voting is a playful, poetic, and powerful primer about the importance of voting and activism. Featuring Kate Farrell’s rhyming text and Caitlin Kuhwald’s bold art, plus thoughtful back matter, the book is a gorgeous, and crucial, addition to every young reader’s library. It makes the perfect gift for fans of A Is for Activist, Woke Baby, and Feminist Baby. "This ABC-style children's book reinforces every element from A to Z of just how powerful one vote can be." —Romper
Download or read book Electing Not to Vote written by Ted Lewis and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethical discourse about the institution of voting rarely includes the option of abstaining for principled reasons. This collection of nine articles widens the discussion in that direction by giving readers a new question: At what point and on what grounds might one choose not to vote as an act of conscience? Contributors offer both ethical and faith-based reasons for not voting. For some, it is a matter of candidates not measuring up to high standards; for others it is a matter of reserving political identity and allegiance for the church rather than the nation-state. These writers--representing a wide range of Christian traditions--cite texts from diverse sources: Mennonites, Pentecostals, and pre-Civil Rights African Americans. Some contributors reference the positions of Catholic bishops, Karl Barth, or John Howard Yoder. New Testament texts also figure strongly in these cases for "conscientious abstention" from voting. In addition to cultivating the ethical discussion around abstention from voting, the contributors suggest alternative ways beneficially to engage society. This volume creates a new freedom for readers within any faith tradition to enter into a dialogue that has not yet been welcomed in North America.
Download or read book One Person One Vote written by Nick Seabrook and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A redistricting crisis is now upon us. This surprising, compelling book tells the history of how we got to this moment—from the Founding Fathers to today’s high-tech manipulation of election districts—and shows us as well how to protect our most sacred, hard-fought principle of one person, one vote. Here is THE book on gerrymandering for citizens, politicians, journalists, activists, and voters. “Seabrook’s lucid account of the origins and evolution of gerrymandering—the deliberate and partisan doctoring of district borders for electoral advantage—makes a potentially dry, wonky subject accessible and engaging for a broad audience.” —The New York Times Gerrymandering is the manipulation of election districts for partisan and political gain. Instead of voters picking the politicians they want, politicians pick the voters they need to get the election results they’re after. Surprisingly, gerrymandering has been around since before our nation’s founding. And with technology, those drawing the redistricting lines have, now more than ever, been able to microtarget their electoral manipulations with unprecedented levels of precision. Nick Seabrook, an authority on constitutional and election law and an expert on gerrymandering (pronounced with a hard G!), has written an illuminating, urgently needed book on how our elections have been rigged through redistricting, beginning with the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, and extending to the twentieth century’s gerrymandering battles at the Supreme Court and today’s high-tech manipulations of election districts. Seabrook writes of Patrick Henry, who used redistricting to settle an old score with political foe and fellow Founding Father James Madison (almost preventing the Bill of Rights from happening). He writes of Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, and corrects the mistaken notion of the derivation of the term “gerrymander.” He writes of Abraham Lincoln and how his desire to preserve the Union led him to manipulate the admission of new states in order to maintain his majority in the Senate. And we come to understand the place of the Supreme Court in its fierce battles regarding gerrymandering throughout the twentieth century. First was Felix Frankfurter, who fought for decades to prevent the judiciary from involving itself in disputes concerning the drawing of districts. Then came the Warren Court and its series of civil rights cases culminating in the landmark decision (Reynolds v. Sims), written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which says that state legislatures, unlike the United States Congress, must have representation in both houses based on districts containing equal populations—with redistricting as needed following each census. The result has been ever-increasing, hard-fought wrangling between the two political parties after each census. Seabrook explores the rise of the most partisan gerrymanders in American history, put into place by the Republican Party after the 2010 census, and how the battle has shifted to the states via REDMAP—the GOP’s successful strategy of the last decade to control state governments and rig the results of state legislative and congressional elections.
Download or read book What You Need to Know About Voting and Why written by Kim Wehle and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Now, more than ever, Americans are realizing that their votes count. Kim Wehle’s excellent guide tells you everything you need to know about the laws governing our greatest right and privilege. A must-read, especially in an election year.” —Norah O'Donnell, Anchor and Managing Editor, CBS Evening News Want to change the world? The first step is to exercise your right to vote! In this step by step guide, you can learn everything you need to know. In What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why, law professor and constitutional scholar Kimberly Wehle offers practical, useful advice on the mechanics of voting and an enlightening survey of its history and future. What is a primary? How does the electoral college work? Who gets to cast a ballot and why? How do mail-in ballots work? How do I register? For new voters, would-be voters, young people and all of us looking ahead to the next election, What You Need to Know About Voting—and Why is a timely and informative guide, providing the background you need in order to make informed choices that will shape our shared destiny for decades to come.
Download or read book The Party Decides written by Marty Cohen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, politicians and voters alike worried that the outcome might depend on the preferences of unelected superdelegates. This concern threw into relief the prevailing notion that—such unusually competitive cases notwithstanding—people, rather than parties, should and do control presidential nominations. But for the past several decades, The Party Decides shows, unelected insiders in both major parties have effectively selected candidates long before citizens reached the ballot box. Tracing the evolution of presidential nominations since the 1790s, this volume demonstrates how party insiders have sought since America’s founding to control nominations as a means of getting what they want from government. Contrary to the common view that the party reforms of the 1970s gave voters more power, the authors contend that the most consequential contests remain the candidates’ fights for prominent endorsements and the support of various interest groups and state party leaders. These invisible primaries produce frontrunners long before most voters start paying attention, profoundly influencing final election outcomes and investing parties with far more nominating power than is generally recognized.
Download or read book Give Us the Ballot written by Ari Berman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of 2015 A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2015 A Boston Globe Best Book of 2015 A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2015 An NPR Best Book of 2015 Countless books have been written about the civil rights movement, but far less attention has been paid to what happened after the dramatic passage of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 1965 and the turbulent forces it unleashed. Give Us the Ballot tells this story for the first time. In this groundbreaking narrative history, Ari Berman charts both the transformation of American democracy under the VRA and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit voting rights, from 1965 to the present day. The act enfranchised millions of Americans and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. And yet, fifty years later, we are still fighting heated battles over race, representation, and political power, with lawmakers devising new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth and with the Supreme Court declaring a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Berman brings the struggle over voting rights to life through meticulous archival research, in-depth interviews with major figures in the debate, and incisive on-the-ground reporting. In vivid prose, he takes the reader from the demonstrations of the civil rights era to the halls of Congress to the chambers of the Supreme Court. At this important moment in history, Give Us the Ballot provides new insight into one of the most vital political and civil rights issues of our time.
Download or read book Let the People Pick the President written by Jesse Wegman and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Wegman combines in-depth historical analysis and insight into contemporary politics to present a cogent argument that the Electoral College violates America’s ‘core democratic principles’ and should be done away with..." —Publishers Weekly The framers of the Constitution battled over it. Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose? Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question—and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president. Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed—now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president? In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. In Let the People Pick the President he shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count—and restore belief in our democratic system.
Download or read book Finish the Fight written by Veronica Chambers and published by Versify. This book was released on 2020 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exciting collaboration with the New York Times will reveal the untold stories of the diverse heroines who fought for the 19th amendment. On the 100th anniversary of the historic win for women's rights, it's time to celebrate the names and stories of the women whose courage helped change the fabric of America.
Download or read book The Voting Booth written by Brandy Colbert and published by Disney Electronic Content. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two first-time teen voters meet at their polling place and fall in love over the course of one crazy day in this YA novel pitched as THE KISSING BOOTH meets THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR.
