Download or read book Contentious Elections written by Pippa Norris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the world has witnessed a rising tide of contentious elections ending in heated partisan debates, court challenges, street protests, and legitimacy challenges. In some cases, disputes have been settled peacefully through legal appeals and electoral reforms. In the worst cases, however, disputes have triggered bloodshed or government downfalls and military coups. Contentious elections are characterized by major challenges, with different degrees of severity, to the legitimacy of electoral actors, procedures, or outcomes. Despite growing concern, until recently little research has studied this phenomenon. The theory unfolded in this volume suggests that problems of electoral malpractice erode confidence in electoral authorities, spur peaceful protests demonstrating against the outcome, and, in the most severe cases, lead to outbreaks of conflict and violence. Understanding this process is of vital concern for domestic reformers and the international community, as well as attracting a growing new research agenda. The editors, from the Electoral Integrity Project, bring together scholars considering a range of fresh evidence– analyzing public opinion surveys of confidence in elections and voter turnout within specific countries, as well as expert perceptions of the existence of peaceful electoral demonstrations, and survey and aggregate data monitoring outbreaks of electoral violence. The book provides insights invaluable for studies in democracy and democratization, comparative politics, comparative elections, peace and conflict studies, comparative sociology, international development, comparative public opinion, political behavior, political institutions, and public policy.

Download or read book Counting Every Vote written by Eric Shiraev and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2000 U.S. presidential election was not the first in American history that was exceptionally close or that produced highly disputed results. In 1801 Thomas Jefferson became president after an electoral gridlock, but only after Congress voted three dozen times to select the president. Charles Hughes lost in 1916 to Woodrow Wilson by losing in California by some 3,000 votes. In 1960 John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by only a fraction of a percentage point in a very controversial election. What would have happened if Aaron Burr, rather than Jefferson, had become president? What if Nixon had defeated Kennedy in 1960? What if Al Gore had become president in 2001 instead of George W. Bush? Using six cases, political scientists Robert Dudley and Eric Shiraev argue that engaging in this counterfactual exercise provides an excellent opportunity to revisit history, learn from its lessons, and relate to contemporary elections. The authors' aim is not to prove that their suggested scenarios would have certainly happened, but merely to show that they might have, and therein lies the importance of voting. Every vote counts, and the consequences can be enormous.

Download or read book Our Broken Elections written by John Fund and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behind the deeply contentious 2020 election stands a real story of a broken election process. Election fraud that alters election outcomes and dilutes legitimate votes occurs all too often, as is the bungling of election bureaucrats. Our election process is full of vulnerabilities that can be — and are — taken advantage of, raising questions about, and damaging public confidence in, the legitimacy of the outcome of elections. This book explores the reality of the fraud and bureaucratic errors and mistakes that should concern all Americans and offers recommendations and solutions to fix those problems.

Download or read book Why Elections Fail written by Pippa Norris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-08 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Too often, elections around the globe are, unfortunately, deeply flawed or even fail. What triggers these problems? In this second volume of her trilogy on electoral integrity, Pippa Norris compares structural, international, and institutional accounts as alternative perspectives to explain why elections fail to meet international standards. The book argues that rules preventing political actors from manipulating electoral governance are needed to secure integrity, although at the same time officials also need sufficient resources and capacities to manage elections effectively. Drawing on new evidence, the study determines the most effective types of strategies for strengthening the quality of electoral governance around the world. With a global perspective, this book provides fresh insights into these major issues at the heart of the study of elections and voting behavior, comparative politics, democracy and democratization, political culture, democratic governance, public policymaking, development, international relations and conflict studies, and processes of regime change.

Download or read book Ballot Battles written by Edward Foley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2000 presidential race resulted in the highest-profile ballot battle in over a century. But it is far from the only American election determined by a handful of votes and marred by claims of fraud. Since the founding of the nation, violence frequently erupted as the votes were being counted, and more than a few elections produced manifestly unfair results. Despite America's claim to be the world's greatest democracy, its adherence to the basic tenets of democratic elections-the ability to count ballots accurately and fairly even when the stakes are high-has always been shaky. A rigged gubernatorial election in New York in 1792 nearly ended in calls for another revolution, and an 1899 gubernatorial race even resulted in an assassination. Though acts of violence have decreased in frequency over the past century, fairness and accuracy in ballot counting nonetheless remains a basic problem in American political life. In Ballot Battles, Edward Foley presents a sweeping history of election controversies in the United States, tracing how their evolution generated legal precedents that ultimately transformed how we determine who wins and who loses. While weaving a narrative spanning over two centuries, Foley repeatedly returns to an originating event: because the Founding Fathers despised parties and never envisioned the emergence of a party system, they wrote a constitution that did not provide clear solutions for high-stakes and highly-contested elections in which two parties could pool resources against one another. Moreover, in the American political system that actually developed, politicians are beholden to the parties which they represent - and elected officials have typically had an outsized say in determining the outcomes of extremely close elections that involve recounts. This underlying structural problem, more than anything else, explains why intense ballot battles that leave one side feeling aggrieved will continue to occur for the foreseeable future. American democracy has improved dramatically over the last two centuries. But the same cannot be said for the ways in which we determine who wins the very close races. From the founding until today, there has been little progress toward fixing the problem. Indeed, supporters of John Jay in 1792 and opponents of Lyndon Johnson in the 1948 Texas Senate race would find it easy to commiserate with Al Gore after the 2000 election. Ballot Battles is not only the first full chronicle of contested elections in the US. It also provides a powerful explanation of why the American election system has been-and remains-so ineffective at deciding the tightest races in a way that all sides will agree is fair.

Download or read book Voter Suppression in U S Elections written by Stacey Abrams and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Following the model of the first book in the "History in the Headlines (HiH) series (Catherine Clinton's Confederate Statues and Memorialization), Voter Suppression in U.S. Elections offers an enlightening, history-informed conversation about voter disenfranchisement in the United States. The book includes an edited transcript of a conversation hosted by the Library Company of Philadelphia in 2019, as well as the "ten best" articles students and interested citizens should read about voter access and suppression. The book will have an online presence that hosts additional content (more articles, podcasts, other news) on the press's Manifold digital publishing platform site"--

Download or read book Controversial Issues in Presidential Selection written by Gary L. Rose and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1994-07-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition provides the latest on controversies surrounding the presidential selection process. The text is two-thirds new material, with new articles by John F. Bibby, Robert D. Brown, Emmett H. Buell, Jr., M. Margaret Conway, Thomas E. Cronin, Doris Graber, Jon F. Hale, Everett Ladd, Robert D. Loevy, Theodore Lowi, Wayne Parent, Frank J. Sorauf, and Herbert Weisberg, and revised articles from many of the contributors to the first edition. The book is designed to stimulate lively debate and critical thinking about the modern process of presidential selection. Eleven issues that impact directly on the selection of the president of the United States are examined in a scholarly and argumentative format. Essays pro and con on each issue educate students in the dynamics of presidential selection and help them evaluate competing perspectives on today's pressing issues. The controversial issues examined span the various phases of the selection process, including the nominating system, the nominating convention, and the general election campaign. New issues covered for this edition include whether a third major party in U.S. politics is likely or needed.

Download or read book In Defense of Judicial Elections written by Chris W. Bonneau and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most contentious issues in politics today is the propriety of electing judges. Ought judges be independent of democratic processes in obtaining and retaining their seats, or should they be subject to the approval of the electorate and the processes that accompany popular control? While this debate is interesting and often quite heated, it usually occurs without reference to empirical facts--or at least accurate ones. Also, empirical scholars to date have refused to take a position on the normative issues surrounding the practice. Bonneau and Hall offer a fresh new approach. Using almost two decades of data on state supreme court elections, Bonneau and Hall argue that opponents of judicial elections have made—and continue to make—erroneous empirical claims. They show that judicial elections are efficacious mechanisms that enhance the quality of democracy and create an inextricable link between citizens and the judiciary. In so doing, they pioneer the use of empirical data to shed light on these normative questions and offer a coherent defense of judicial elections. This provocative book is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of judicial selection, law and politics, or the electoral process. Part of the Controversies in Electoral Democracy and Representation series edited by Matthew J. Streb.

Download or read book America Afire written by Bernard A. Weisberger and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America Afire is the powerful story of the election of 1800, arguably the most important election in America's history and certainly one of the most hotly disputed. Former allies Adams and Jefferson, president versus vice president, Federalist versus Republican, squared off in a vicious contest that resulted in broken friendships, scandals, riots, slander, and jailings in the fourth presidential election under the Constitution.

Download or read book A Citizen s Guide to the Political Psychology of Voting written by David P. Redlawsk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-06 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the run-up to a contentious 2020 presidential election, the much-maligned American voter may indeed be wondering, “How did we get here?” A Citizen’s Guide to the Political Psychology of Voting offers a way of thinking about how voters make decisions that provides both hope and concern. In many ways, voters may be able to effectively process vast amounts of information in order to decide which candidates to vote for in concert with their ideas, values, and priorities. But human limitations in information processing must give us pause. While we all might think we want to be rational information processors, political psychologists recognize that most of the time we do not have the time or the motivation to do so. The question is, can voters do a “good enough” job even if they fail to account for everything during the campaign? Evidence suggests that they can, but it isn’t easy. Here, Redlawsk and Habegger portray a wide variety of voter styles and approaches—from the most motivated and engaged to the farthest removed and disenchanted—in vignettes that connect the long tradition of voter survey research to real life voting challenges. They explore how voters search for political information and make use of it in evaluating candidates and their positions. Ultimately, they find that American voters are reasonably competent in making well-enough informed vote choices efficiently and responsibly. For citizen voters as well as students and scholars, these results should encourage regular turnout for elections now and in the future.

Download or read book At Any Cost written by Bill Sammon and published by Regnery Publishing. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes Al Gore's efforts to overturn the results of the 2000 presidential election, including his attempts to toss military ballots and his campaign against Florida attorney general Katherine Harris.

Download or read book Divided We Stand written by Andrew E. Busch and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-02-24 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through pandemic, protests, and polarization, Americans went to the polls in 2020, one of the most contentious elections in American history. Continuing an R&L tradition now entering its fourth decade, Divided We Stand book provides the most comprehensive and authoritative account of the national election, as well as congressional and state elections. From the nominating process to the insurrection designed to stop the ratification of the electoral college vote, Andrew E. Busch and John J. Pitney Jr. revisit the campaigns and results through the short lens of politics today and the long lens of American political history. With its keen insights into the issues and events that drove the 2020 elections, Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics will be an invaluable resource for students and all political observers seeking to understand a historic election that will continue to resonate throughout American politics for many years to come.

Download or read book Voter Suppression in U S Elections written by Stacey Abrams and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have long been engaged in telling the story of the struggle for the vote. In the wake of recent contested elections, the suppression of the vote has returned to the headlines, as awareness of the deep structural barriers to the ballot, particularly for poor, black, and Latino voters, has called attention to the historical roots of issues related to voting access. Perhaps most notably, former state legislator Stacey Abrams’s campaign for Georgia's gubernatorial race drew national attention after she narrowly lost to then-secretary of state Brian Kemp, who had removed hundreds of thousands of voters from the official rolls. After her loss, Abrams created Fair Fight, a multimillion-dollar initiative to combat voter suppression in twenty states. At an annual conference of the Organization of American Historians, leading scholars Carol Anderson, Kevin M. Kruse, Heather Cox Richardson, and Heather Anne Thompson had a conversation with Abrams about the long history of voter suppression at the Library Company of Philadelphia. This book is a transcript of that extraordinary conversation, edited by Jim Downs. Voter Suppression in U.S. Elections offers an enlightening, history-informed conversation about voter disenfranchisement in the United States. By gathering scholars and activists whose work has provided sharp analyses of this issue, we see how historians in general explore contentious topics and provide historical context for students and the broader public. The book also includes a “top ten” selection of essays and articles by such writers as journalist Ari Berman, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Blight, and civil rights icon John Lewis.

Download or read book Ballot Battles written by Edward B. Foley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-26 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2000 presidential race resulted in the highest-profile ballot battle in over a century. But it is far from the only American election determined by a handful of votes and marred by claims of fraud. Since the founding of the nation, violence frequently erupted as the votes were being counted, and more than a few elections produced manifestly unfair results. Despite America's claim to be the world's greatest democracy, its adherence to the basic tenets of democratic elections-the ability to count ballots accurately and fairly even when the stakes are high-has always been shaky. A rigged gubernatorial election in New York in 1792 nearly ended in calls for another revolution, and an 1899 gubernatorial race even resulted in an assassination. Though acts of violence have decreased in frequency over the past century, fairness and accuracy in ballot counting nonetheless remains a basic problem in American political life. In Ballot Battles, Edward Foley presents a sweeping history of election controversies in the United States, tracing how their evolution generated legal precedents that ultimately transformed how we determine who wins and who loses. While weaving a narrative spanning over two centuries, Foley repeatedly returns to an originating event: because the Founding Fathers despised parties and never envisioned the emergence of a party system, they wrote a constitution that did not provide clear solutions for high-stakes and highly-contested elections in which two parties could pool resources against one another. Moreover, in the American political system that actually developed, politicians are beholden to the parties which they represent - and elected officials have typically had an outsized say in determining the outcomes of extremely close elections that involve recounts. This underlying structural problem, more than anything else, explains why intense ballot battles that leave one side feeling aggrieved will continue to occur for the foreseeable future. American democracy has improved dramatically over the last two centuries. But the same cannot be said for the ways in which we determine who wins the very close races. From the founding until today, there has been little progress toward fixing the problem. Indeed, supporters of John Jay in 1792 and opponents of Lyndon Johnson in the 1948 Texas Senate race would find it easy to commiserate with Al Gore after the 2000 election. Ballot Battles is not only the first full chronicle of contested elections in the US. It also provides a powerful explanation of why the American election system has been-and remains-so ineffective at deciding the tightest races in a way that all sides will agree is fair.

Download or read book By One Vote written by Michael Fitzgibbon Holt and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh interpretation of the disputed presidential election of 1876 between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden, which was characterized by allegations of election fraud and a narrow victory by a single electoral vote. Many historians consider this election the precursor to the bitterly divisive 2000 Bush-Gore election.

Download or read book Tainted by Suspicion written by Fred Lucas and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The almost-presidencies of Aaron Burr or Al Gore would have created a different world.Four presidential elections were not decided on election day, but were rather decided by another branch of government. And in three cases, large segments of Americans viewed the president as illegitimately selected rather than legitimately elected.The infant nation could have been ripped apart in 1800, when the election that began between Adams and Jefferson turned into the Jefferson and Burr.The old order maintained its final grasp on power against Jacksonian democracy in 1824.Barely a decade after recovering from the bloody Civil War, the country nearly went to war again over the 1876 contest.And 2000 saw the Supreme Court essentially decide a deadlocked presidential race.Tainted by Suspicion provides a White House correspondent's perspective of contested elections, taking a more reportorial than historical viewpoint, including interviews with leading experts and politicos about the lasting consequences of controversial electoral history.These experts give the reader insight into what-if scenarios, if the elections turned out differently, as they so easily could have.

Download or read book The 2016 American Presidential Campaign and the News written by Jim A. Kuypers and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2018-03-14 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines perhaps the most contentious election in modern US history—the 2016 United States presidential election. It is unique in its discussion of a wide range of issues affecting the news media coverage of the election, coming from an equally diverse range of intellectual perspectives including the rhetorical, social-scientific, communication studies, and media studies. With eleven chapters grounded in hard evidence and communication theory, The 2016 American Presidential Campaign and the News: Implications for American Democracy and the Republic examines significant topics such as fake news, media construction of Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s campaign personalities, media bias, visual meme depictions of the candidates, identity politics in the news, Trump’s Twitter use, entertainment news, and social media as news. These chapters individually and collectively provide a direct commentary on the implications of the 2016 campaign news coverage for the future of the American Republic and political communication in the media.