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Outsourcing Democracy: Redefining The Public Private Partnership In Election Administration, Gilda R. Daniels

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“We are left with a system in which almost every state still outsources its elections to what are actually private organizations.”

Federal, state and local governments are deeply indebted to private organizations, political parties, candidates, and private individuals to assist it, inter alia, in registering voters, getting citizens to the ballot box through get out the vote campaigns (GOTV), assisting limited English proficient (LEP) citizens, and monitoring Election Day activities. In a recent Supreme Court case, Crawford v. Marion County, Justice Souter recognized that voting legislation has “two competing interests,” the fundamental right to vote and the need for governmental …