Download or read book The Politics of Ballot Design written by Erik J. Engstrom and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: US federalism grants state legislators the authority to design many aspects of election administration, including ballot features that mediate how citizens understand and engage with the choices available to them when casting their votes. Seemingly innocuous features in the physical design of ballots, such as the option to cast a straight ticket with a single checkmark, can have significant aggregate effects. Drawing on theoretical insights from behavioral economics and extensive data on state ballot laws from 1888 to the present, as well as in-depth case studies, this book shows how strategic politicians use ballot design to influence voting and elections, drawing comparisons across different periods in American history with varying levels of partisanship and contention. Engstrom and Roberts demonstrate the sweeping impact of ballot design on voting, elections, and democratic representation.
Download or read book Design for Democracy written by Marcia Lausen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November 2000, when the now-infamous "butterfly ballot" confused crucial Florida voters during a hotly contested presidential race, the importance of well-designed ballots to a functioning democracy caught the nation's attention. Recognizing that our entire voting process—from registering to vote to following instructions at the polling place—can be almost as confusing as the Florida ballot, Design for Democracy builds on the lessons of 2000 by presenting innovative steps for redesigning elections in the service of citizens. Handsomely designed itself, this volume showcases adaptable design models that can improve almost every part of the election process by maximizing the clarity and usability of ballots, registration forms, posters and signs, informational brochures and guides, and even administrative materials for poll workers. Design for Democracy also lays out specific guidelines—covering issues of color palette, typography, and image use—that anchor the comprehensive election design system devised by the group of design specialists from whose name the book takes its title. Part of a major AIGA strategic program, this group's prototypes and recommendations have already been used successfully in major Illinois and Oregon elections and, collected here, are likely to spread across the country as more people become aware of the myriad benefits and broad applicability of improved election design. An essential tool for designers and election officials, lawmakers and citizens, Design for Democracy harnesses the power of design to increase voter confidence, promote government transparency, and, perhaps most important, create an informed electorate.
Download or read book This is What Democracy Looked Like written by Alicia Yin Cheng and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Is What Democracy Looked Like, the first illustrated history of printed ballot design, illuminates the noble but often flawed process at the heart of our democracy. An exploration and celebration of US ballots from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this visual history reveals unregulated, outlandish, and, at times, absurd designs that reflect the explosive growth and changing face of the voting public. The ballots offer insight into a pivotal time in American history—a period of tectonic shifts in the electoral system—fraught with electoral fraud, disenfranchisement, scams, and skullduggery, as parties printed their own tickets and voters risked their lives going to the polls.
Download or read book Securing the Vote written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-09-30 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 2016 presidential election, America's election infrastructure was targeted by actors sponsored by the Russian government. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy examines the challenges arising out of the 2016 federal election, assesses current technology and standards for voting, and recommends steps that the federal government, state and local governments, election administrators, and vendors of voting technology should take to improve the security of election infrastructure. In doing so, the report provides a vision of voting that is more secure, accessible, reliable, and verifiable.
Download or read book Brave New Ballot written by Aviel David Rubin and published by Crown. This book was released on 2006-09-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy has never been more vulnerable. The problem is right here in America. How to Sabotage an Election Become an election judge and carry a refrigerator magnet in your pocket Program every fifth vote to automatically record for your candidate Bury your hacked code Avi Rubin, a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins and a specialist in systems security knows something the rest of us don’t. Maybe we suspected it, maybe we’ve thought it, but we didn’t have proof. Until now. The electronic voting machines being used in 37 states are vulnerable to tampering, and because the manufacturers are not required to reveal—even to the government—how they operate, voters will never know if their votes are recorded accurately. Follow Rubin on his quest to wake America up to the fact that the irregularities in the 2004 elections might not have been accidents; that there are simple solutions that election commissions are willfully ignoring; that if you voted on an electronic machine, there’s a chance you didn’t vote the way you wanted to. Learn what you can do the next time you vote to make sure that your vote is counted. Imagine for a moment that you live in a country where nobody is sure how most of the votes are counted, and there’s no reliable record for performing a recount. Imagine that machines count the votes, but nobody knows how they work. Now imagine if somebody found out that the machines were vulnerable to attack, but the agencies that operate them won’t take the steps to make them safe. If you live in America, you don’t need to imagine anything. This is the reality of electronic voting in our country. Avi Rubin is a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University and a specialist in systems security. He and a team of researchers studied the code that operates the machines now used in 37 states and discovered the following terrifying facts: The companies hired to test the election equipment for federal certification did not study the code that operates the machines and the election commissions employed no computer security analysts. All votes are recorded on a single removable card similar to the one in a digital camera. There is no way to determine if the card or the code that operates the machine has been tampered with. It’s very easy to program a machine to change votes. There’s no way to determine if that has happened. There were enough irregularities with the electronic voting machines used throughout the 2004 election to make anyone think twice about using them again. Avi Rubin has testified at Congressional hearings trying to alert the government that it has put our democracy at risk by relying so heavily on voting machines without taking the proper precautions. As he has waged this battle, he has been attacked, undermined, and defamed by a prominent manufacturer. His job has been threatened, but he won’t give up until every citizen understands that at this moment, our democracy hangs in the balance. There are simple solutions and, before you vote in the next election, Rubin wants you to know your rights. If you don’t know them and you use an electronic voting machine, you may not be voting at all.
Download or read book The Dictator s Dilemma at the Ballot Box written by Masaaki Higashijima and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to our stereotypical views, dictators often introduce elections in which they refrain from employing blatant electoral fraud. Why do electoral reforms happen in autocracies? Do these elections destabilize autocratic rule? The Dictator’s Dilemma at the Ballot Box argues that strong autocrats who can garner popular support become less dependent on coercive electioneering strategies. When autocrats fail to design elections properly, elections backfire in the form of coups, protests, and the opposition’s stunning election victories. The book’s theoretical implications are tested on a battery of cross-national analyses with newly collected data on autocratic elections and in-depth comparative case studies of the two Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Download or read book Before the Ballot written by John Chrastka and published by American Library Association. This book was released on 2019-07-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Let’s be blunt: library funding is political. And the struggle to secure funding is ongoing; the work that librarians need to do to influence local politics doesn’t just pop up in the few months before Election Day. It should span the years before or between elections. The authors’ previous book Winning Elections and Influencing Politicians for Library Funding targeted library ballot committees and advocacy organizations. But their new book speaks directly to librarians, library staff, and boards. It is designed to help library leaders understand and navigate the political nature of their work in the years leading up to a ballot measure or political initiative. Sharing the tools and tactics developed by their organization EveryLibrary, the nation’s first and only Political Action Committee for Libraries, in this book they discuss how the day-to-day work of librarians, their communications with the public, and their roles and responsibilities in the community can help increase the willingness of public and local elected officials to support funding libraries through taxes; guide readers through the practical side of running a public-facing Informational Communications Campaign for their library before Election Day; explain the concept of surfacing, the important groundwork of occupying a strong and positive space in the community during the years before and between ballot measures; demonstrate why surfacing is one of the most crucial steps a library can take to build and maintain support; share the most recent data insights into voter attitudes about libraries and librarians; show how libraries can coordinate internally to build new external partners; offer advice on finding, activating, and holding onto supporters; and discuss the path to the ballot with practical insights about how to get onto the ballot. This essential resource is filled with concrete steps that librarians, library staff, and boards can take to ensure that political support is there when they need it the most.
Download or read book Electoral System Design written by Andrew Reynolds and published by Stockholm : International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. This book was released on 2005 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Voting with Dollars written by Bruce Ackerman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: divdivIn this provocative book, two leading law professors challenge the existing campaign reform agenda and present a new initiative that avoids the mistakes of the past. Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres build on the example of the secret ballot and propose a system of “secret donation booths” for campaign contributions. They unveil a plan in which the government provides each voter with a special credit card account containing fifty “Patriot dollars” for presidential elections. To use this money, citizens go to their local ATM machine and anonymously send their Patriot dollars to their favorite candidates or political organizations. Americans are free to make additional contributions, but they must also give these gifts anonymously. Because candidates cannot identify who provided the funds, it will be much harder for big contributors to buy political influence. And the need for politicians to compete for the Patriot dollars will give much more power to the people. Ackerman and Ayres work out the operating details of their plan, anticipate problems, design safeguards, suggest overseers, and show how their proposals satisfy the most stringent constitutional requirements. They conclude with a model statute that could serve as the basis of a serious congressional effort to restore Americans’ faith in democratic politics./DIV/DIV
Download or read book Electoral Dysfunction written by Victoria Bassetti and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine a country where the right to vote is not guaranteed by the Constitution, where the candidate with the most votes loses, and where paperwork requirements and bureaucratic bungling disenfranchise millions. You're living in it. If the consequences weren't so serious, it would be funny. A concise handbook designed as a fact-filled companion to the forthcoming PBS documentary starring political satirist and commentator Mo Rocca, Electoral Dysfunction illuminates a broad array of issues, including: the Founding Fathers' decision to omit the right to vote from the Constitution—and the legal system's patchwork response to this omission; the battle over voter ID, voter impersonation, and voter fraud; the foul-ups that plague Election Day, from ballot design to contested recounts; the role of partisan officials in running elections; and the antidemocratic origins and impact of the Electoral College. The book concludes with a prescription for a healthy voting system crafted by leading voting-reform experts, whose agenda for change includes a call for universal voter registration and unform national standards. Published in the run-up to the 2012 election, Electoral Dysfunction is for readers across the political spectrum who want their vote to count.
Download or read book Design Meaning and Choice in Direct Democracy written by Shauna Reilly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Design, Meaning and Choice in Direct Democracy examines the link between political knowledge and participation in direct democracy in the United States. Presenting insights on the different behaviours of the petitioner, the ballot and the voter and using quantitative, qualitative and experimental methodological approaches, Shauna Reilly evaluates the use of direct democracy and why, despite the power of these measures, there is such low turnout in these elections. She demonstrates the varied approaches to ballot measures and citizens particularly when dealing with citizen comprehension which can account for the variety of language that appears on the ballot. A rigorous and highly original analysis of direct democracy in the United States, this book guarantees that readers will be shocked at the findings and question the future of governance through ballot measures.
Download or read book Voting at the Political Fault Line written by Bruce E. Cain and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the most important and impressive collection of original research available on California's blanket primary. Its discussion of open primaries and crossover voting raises provocative issues which loom large. The findings are impressive."--Max Neiman, author of Defending Government: Why Big Government Works "Cain and Gerber have assembled a stellar cast of scholars to consider the impact of the blanket primary and important electoral change in California's politics. This is a very important book for anybody who wants to understand how institutions shape political incentives."--Bernard Grofman, author of Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality "When Californians passed Proposition 198, they also provided a national stage on which the nature of state elections in general was placed in the spotlight. Cain and Gerber's Voting at the Political Fault Line is an intelligent compilation of work and assessments of the rumblings that followed and the longer-term consequences that are likely to be debated over the nature of primary elections. Its no-nonsense style and reliance on sophisticated empirical analysis highlight some counterintuitive results and illustrate highly creative applications of social science methods."--Max Neiman, author of Defending Government: Why Big Government Works
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 Just Elections written by Dennis F. Thompson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2004-07-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2000 election showed that the mechanics of voting such as ballot design, can make a critical difference in the accuracy and fairness of our elections. But as Dennis F. Thompson shows, even more fundamental issues must be addressed to insure that our electoral system is just. Thompson argues that three central democratic principles—equal respect, free choice, and popular sovereignty—underlie our electoral institutions, and should inform any assessment of the justice of elections. Although we may all endorse these principles in theory, Thompson shows that in practice we disagree about their meaning and application. He shows how they create conflicts among basic values across a broad spectrum of electoral controversies, from disagreements about term limits and primaries to disputes about recounts and presidential electors. To create a fair electoral system, Thompson argues, we must deliberate together about these principles and take greater control of the procedures that govern our elections. He demonstrates how applying the principles of justice to electoral practices can help us answer questions that our electoral system poses: Should race count in redistricting? Should the media call elections before the polls close? How should we limit the power of money in elections? Accessible and wide ranging, Just Elections masterfully weaves together the philosophical, legal, and political aspects of the electoral process. Anyone who wants to understand the deeper issues at stake in American elections and the consequences that follow them will need to read it. In answering these and other questions, Thompson examines the arguments that citizens and their representatives actually use in political forums, congressional debates and hearings, state legislative proceedings, and meetings of commissions and local councils. In addition, the book draws on a broad range of literature: democratic theory, including writings by Madison, Hamilton, and Tocqueville, and contemporary philosophers, as well as recent studies in political science, and work in election law.
Download or read book Helping America Vote written by Martha Kropf and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A repeat of the Florida debacle in the 2000 presidential election is the fear of every election administrator. Despite the relatively complication-free 2008 election, we are working with fairly new federal legislation designed to ease election administration problems. The implementation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) raises the question, how effective have reforms been? Could another Florida happen? Helping America Vote is focused on the conflict between values of access and integrity in U.S. election administration. Kropf and Kimball examine both what was included in HAVA and what was not. Widespread agreement that voting equipment was a problem made technology the centerpiece of the legislation, and it has remedied a number of pressing concerns. But there is still reason to be concerned about key aspects of electronic voting, ballot design, and the politics of partisan administrators. It takes a legitimacy crisis for serious election reforms to happen at the federal level, and seemingly, the crisis has passed. However, the risk is still very much present for the electoral process to fail. What are the implications for democracy when we attempt reform?
Download or read book Design Meaning and Choice in Direct Democracy written by Shauna Reilly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Design, Meaning and Choice in Direct Democracy examines the link between political knowledge and participation in direct democracy in the United States. Presenting insights on the different behaviours of the petitioner, the ballot and the voter and using quantitative, qualitative and experimental methodological approaches, Shauna Reilly evaluates the use of direct democracy and why, despite the power of these measures, there is such low turnout in these elections. She demonstrates the varied approaches to ballot measures and citizens particularly when dealing with citizen comprehension which can account for the variety of language that appears on the ballot. A rigorous and highly original analysis of direct democracy in the United States, this book guarantees that readers will be shocked at the findings and question the future of governance through ballot measures.
Download or read book Winning Elections and Influencing Politicians for Library Funding written by Patrick “PC” Sweeney and published by American Library Association. This book was released on 2018-11-29 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the saying goes, all politics is local. And 90% of funding for public libraries comes from the will of local politicians and, in turn, from local voters. So it's urgent that librarians, library supporters, and anyone interested in running an election or campaign for a library understand the strategies, resources, and tactics necessary for positive political action. Whether election day is four months away or four years away, there are immediate steps library leaders and local library ballot committees should take to help secure a successful ballot initiative later. Written by two experienced library campaigners, this action-driven manual for anyone running a political campaign for libraries dives into proven successful campaigning techniques for rural, suburban, and urban settings;expert analysis on how political perceptions are formed, how political power works, and ways libraries can reach funding or political goals;starting the discussion internally;the right approach to setting up the committee structure, and identifying the core leadership team for the committee;tips on networking, cultivating good relationships with the power players in the community, and building a winning coalition;canvassing and direct voter contact;responding effectively to opposition, including voters who habitually resist taxes or library funding increases;the differences between paid media and earned media; andbest practices for marketing and message development, fundraising, volunteer engagement, and other key areas. Filled with easy to follow strategies, this book will guide ballot committees, librarians, trustees, and library advocates through the process of winning an election for funding their library. LIS students will also benefit from the early exposure to political literacy skills provided by this book.
