Download or read book Broken Ballots written by Douglas Jones and published by Center for the Study of Language and Information Publica Tion. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

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 Who s Counting written by John Fund and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2012 election will be one of the hardest-fought in U.S. history. It is also likely to be one of the closest, a fact that brings concerns about voter fraud and bureaucratic incompetence in the conduct of elections front and center. If we don't take notice, we could see another debacle like the Bush-Gore Florida recount of 2000 in which courts and lawyers intervened in what should have involved only voters. Who's Counting? will focus attention on many problems of our election system, ranging from voter fraud to a slipshod system of vote counting that noted political scientist Walter Dean Burnham calls “the most careless of the developed world.” In an effort to clean up our election laws, reduce fraud and increase public confidence in the integrity of the voting system, many states ranging from Georgia to Wisconsin have passed laws requiring a photo ID be shown at the polls and curbing the rampant use of absentee ballots, a tool of choice by fraudsters. The response from Obama allies has been to belittle the need for such laws and attack them as akin to the second coming of a racist tide in American life. In the summer of 2011, both Bill Clinton and DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz preposterously claimed that such laws suppressed minority voters and represented a return to the era of Jim Crow. But voter fraud is a well-documented reality in American elections. Just this year, a sheriff and county clerk in West Virginia pleaded guilty to stuffing ballot boxes with fraudulent absentee ballots that changed the outcome of an election. In 2005, a state senate election in Tennessee was overturned because of voter fraud. The margin of victory? 13 votes. In 2008, the Minnesota senate race that provided the 60th vote needed to pass Obamacare was decided by a little over 300 votes. Almost 200 felons have already been convicted of voting illegally in that election and dozens of other prosecutions are still pending. Public confidence in the integrity of elections is at an all-time low. In the Cooperative Congressional Election Study of 2008, 62% of American voters thought that voter fraud was very common or somewhat common. Fear that elections are being stolen erodes the legitimacy of our government. That's why the vast majority of Americans support laws like Kansas's Secure and Fair Elections Act. A 2010 Rasmussen poll showed that 82% of Americans support photo ID laws. While Americans frequently demand observers and best practices in the elections of other countries, we are often blind to the need to scrutinize our own elections. We may pay the consequences in 2012 if a close election leads us into pitched partisan battles and court fights that will dwarf the Bush-Gore recount wars.

Download or read book Democracy Has Prevailed written by Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrate democracy and the inauguration of America's 46th President, Joe Biden, by reliving his inaugural speech, along with an introductory speech by Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Inaugural Address of President Barack Obama, and the full text of both the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. January 20th, 2021 will be remembered by all Americans as the day of the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States. His inauguration, and the powerful declaration in his speech—"Democracy Has Prevailed!"—marked the start of a new time of hope and potential change at the end of a dark four years marred by political unrest, economic and social turmoil, and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, readers can remember and relive this incredible day with Democracy Has Prevailed. Presenting the full text of President Biden's inaugural speech, as well as Senator Amy Klobuchar's introductory speech, the Inaugural Address of President Barack Obama, and the full text of both the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence, this commemorative edition is perfect for Biden voters, history fans, and anyone with an interest in US politics and society.

Download or read book Let the People Pick the President written by Jesse Wegman and published by All Points Books. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 272 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 Making Votes Count written by Gary W. Cox and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-03-28 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular elections are at the heart of representative democracy. Thus, understanding the laws and practices that govern such elections is essential to understanding modern democracy. In this book, Cox views electoral laws as posing a variety of coordination problems that political forces must solve. Coordination problems - and with them the necessity of negotiating withdrawals, strategic voting, and other species of strategic coordination - arise in all electoral systems. This book employs a unified game-theoretic model to study strategic coordination worldwide and that relies primarily on constituency-level rather than national aggregate data in testing theoretical propositions about the effects of electoral laws. This book also considers not just what happens when political forces succeed in solving the coordination problems inherent in the electoral system they face but also what happens when they fail.

Download or read book Election Insiders written by Gloria Shur Bilchik and published by Gatekeeper Press. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Election Insiders is an entertaining journey into the inner workings of voting, focusing on the people behind the scenes—the mapmakers, poll workers, warehouse crew, signature sleuths and others who do this democracy-defining work. In a lively, reader-friendly narrative, election workers at all levels share the ups, downs and unexpected challenges that make election day tick. Some of their stories are alarming, others are amusing, and many are reassuring. Bilchik’s thorough reporting encompasses more than a year of in-depth interviews and off-the-cuff conversations, examination of public documents, attendance at board meetings and equipment demonstrations, hands-on training, and live election day observations. The result is a one-of-a-kind glimpse into a backstage world that we voters usually don't see, but one that we all depend on to keep elections fair and secure.

Download or read book Whose Vote Counts written by Robert Richie and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2002-09-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy takes place when the silent find their voice, and when we begin to listen to what they have to say. --Lani Guinier, from the Foreword In Whose Vote Counts?, Robert Richie and Steven Hill listen to what the silent are saying. They argue that we need a new way of electing our representatives to combat voter apathy and the leveling of political views. Such a system already exists in many parts of the world, including places in the United States: proportional representation. Leading activists respond in essays that illustrate what our country could look like if all qualified citizens became voters, and if they all felt their vote contributed to more than just the winning or losing tally. The New Democracy Forum is a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns.

Download or read book United States Code written by United States and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 1216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Every Vote Matters written by Thomas A. Jacobs and published by Free Spirit Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encourage teens to recognize the importance of voting and making their voices heard in the democratic process with this timely book focused on Supreme Court decisions that came down to a single vote. Chapters examine key Supreme Court rulings and explore how these cases have affected the lives and rights of U.S. citizens—especially teens. Using a straightforward, impartial tone, the authors take a close look at often controversial cases and at the history of voting in the United States. The emphasis is involvement in local and national elections as well as other ways to be an engaged citizen. With an accompanying digital discussion guide, the book is a perfect choice for teachers and youth leaders to offer teens in the upcoming 2016 presidential election cycle.

Download or read book Deeply Divided written by Doug McAdam and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-18 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By many measures--commonsensical or statistical--the United States has not been more divided politically or economically in the last hundred years than it is now. How have we gone from the striking bipartisan cooperation and relative economic equality of the war years and post-war period to the extreme inequality and savage partisan divisions of today? In this sweeping look at American politics from the Depression to the present, Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that party politics alone is not responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. Instead, it was the ongoing interaction of social movements and parties that, over time, pushed Democrats and Republicans toward their ideological margins, undermining the post-war consensus in the process. The Civil Rights struggle and the white backlash it provoked reintroduced the centrifugal force of social movements into American politics, ushering in an especially active and sustained period of movement/party dynamism, culminating in today's tug of war between the Tea Party and Republican establishment for control of the GOP. In Deeply Divided, McAdam and Kloos depart from established explanations of the conservative turn in the United States and trace the roots of political polarization and economic inequality back to the shifting racial geography of American politics in the 1960s. Angered by Lyndon Johnson's more aggressive embrace of civil rights reform in 1964, Southern Dixiecrats abandoned the Democrats for the first time in history, setting in motion a sustained regional realignment that would, in time, serve as the electoral foundation for a resurgent and increasingly more conservative Republican Party.

Download or read book Every Vote Counts written by Navin Chawla and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2019-01-25 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Navin Chawla has had a ringside view of Indian elections: as Chief Election Commissioner, he supervised the landmark 2009 general election, and several key state elections as well. Drawing on his wide-ranging experience, Every Vote Counts presents a riveting account of how the daunting task of conducting the largest electoral exercise in the world is undertaken. The challenges before the Election Commission are many: How does one conduct free and fair elections when a large percentage of our lawmakers are law-breakers? Is the model code of conduct effective? How does one hold elections in Maoist-affected constituencies, or for that matter in the strife-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir? How reliable are electronic voting machines? Is it possible to implement compulsory voting? Will simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies make things any easier? Every Vote Counts is a fascinating, informative account that gives us a kaleidoscopic view of how the electoral machinery works in the world's largest democracy. With the 2019 elections just round the corner, this is a book that every concerned and interested Indian might want to read.

Download or read book Your Vote Matters How We Elect the US President written by Rebecca Katzman and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging and comprehensive illustrated guide will answer all kids' questions about how the president is elected! There's never been a timelier moment for kids to learn the importance of voting. Your Vote Matters walks readers through all the ins and outs of voting in America -- and more specifically, voting in presidential elections. This easy-to-understand guide explains every step in the presidential election process -- from who is eligible to run for president to what the president does once they are sworn into office. Learn about campaigning and debates, the difference between caucuses and primaries, and how the Electoral College works, plus information about who is eligible to vote; the many different ways citizens can vote on (and leading up to) Election Day; what happens after the final ballots are cast; and tips on what to consider when deciding which candidate should get your vote. Each page of this nonfiction guidebook also features full-color artwork, including photographs, maps, illustrations, charts, and infographics aimed at making the information inside as accessible and kid-friendly as possible. Your Vote Matters is the perfect book to not only help kids understand how elections work -- but why it's important to participate in every single one.

Download or read book Ratf ked written by David Daley and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Daley’s “extraordinarily timely” (New York Times Book Review) account uncovers the fundamental rigging of our House of Representatives and state legislatures nationwide. Lauded as a “compelling” (The New Yorker) and “eye-opening tour of a process that many Americans never see” (Washington Post), David Daley’s Ratf**ked documents the effort of Republican legislators and political operatives to hack American democracy through an audacious redistricting plan called REDMAP. Since the revolutionary election of Barack Obama, a group of GOP strategists has devised a way to flood state races with a gold rush of dark money, made possible by Citizens United, in order to completely reshape Congress—and our democracy itself. “Sobering and convincing” (New York Review of Books), Ratf**ked shows how this program has radically altered America’s electoral map and created a firewall in the House, insulating the Republican party and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. While exhausted voters recover from a grueling presidential election, a new Afterword from the author explores the latest intense efforts by both parties, who are already preparing for the next redistricting cycle in 2020.

Download or read book Bilingual Voting Assistance written by and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2008 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on obtaining more detailed information about bilingual voting assistance from selected jurisdictions across the country. The book's objectives were to determine: the ways that selected jurisdictions covered under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act have provided bilingual voting assistance as of the November 2006 general election and any subsequent elections through June 2007, and the challenges they reportedly faced in providing such assistance; the perceived usefulness of this bilingual voting assistance, and the extent to which the selected jurisdictions evaluated the usefulness of such assistance to language minority voters. This is an excerpted and indexed edition.

Download or read book The Soldier Vote written by Donald S. Inbody and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Soldier Vote tells the story of how Americans in the armed forces gained the right to vote while away from home. The ability for deployed military personnel to cast a ballot was difficult and often vociferously resisted by politicians of both political parties. While progress has been made, significant challenges remain. Using newly obtained data about the military voter, The Soldier Vote challenges some widely held views about the nature of the military vote and how service personnel vote.

Download or read book Will Your Vote Count written by Herma Percy and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2009-04-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voters in a democratic society should have confidence in the electoral process. Yet, as Americans have witnessed in every election since 2000, voting-the basic act of citizenship—is under assault: technologically complex, subject to manipulation, and fiercely contested on many levels. Documenting the areas of collapse in the American electoral process, this book analyzes ongoing problems in the casting and counting of ballots, as well as new threats: future elections could be compromised by new voting machines that are unreliable, poorly programmed, and prone to tampering. At this critical moment for American democracy, the author issues a call for urgently needed reforms.