Election Law Commons^™

Election Campaigns And Democracy: A Review Of James A. Gardner, What Are Campaigns For? The Role Of Persuasion In Electoral Law And Politics, Richard Briffault

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

A 30-Per-Cent Deviation Is Too Wide, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Following Prime Minister Lee's recent announcement that the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) had been convened, SMU Assistant Professor Eugene Tan opined that the 30-per-cent deviation rule, of which the EBRC operates on, is too wide and ?overly-generous? in small and compact Singapore. Professor Tan also commented that the committee's redrawing of electoral boundaries should avoid being seen as gerrymandering.

Identifying And Enforcing Back-End Electoral Rights In International Human Rights Law, Katherine A. Wagner

Michigan Journal of International Law

From Kenya to Afghanistan, Ukraine, the United States, Mexico, and Iran, no region or form of government has been immune from the unsettling effects of a contested election. The story is familiar, and, these days, hardly surprising: a state holds elections, losing candidates and their supporters claim fraud, people take to the streets, diplomats and heads of state equivocate, and everyone waits for the observers' reports. It is the last chapter of this story-the resolution-that remains unfamiliar and still holds the potential to surprise. The increasing focus on and importance of the resolution of contested elections, that resolution's link to …

The Incompatability Of Competitive Majority-Minority Districts And Thornburg V. Gingles, Amy Rublin

Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Disproportionate Disenfranchisement Of Aboriginal Prisoners: A Conflict Of Law That Australia Should Address, Megan A. Winder

Washington International Law Journal

In 2006, Australia’s Parliament banned all prisoners from voting. A year later, Vickie Lee Roach, a female prisoner of Aboriginal descent, challenged the blanket ban promulgated in the 2006 amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act of 1918 (“Electoral Act”). Vickie won, but in a limited way. The High Court found an implied right to vote in the Australian Constitution, but held that Parliament could limit such voting, as it did in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment of 2004 (“E & R Amendment”), disenfranchising any prisoner serving three or more years in jail. This Comment argues that the E & R …

Consumer Assent To Standard Form Contracts And The Voting Analogy, Wayne Barnes

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Variation In Third Party Politics Across The American States, Trevor Grunwald

Political Science Theses and Capstones

It seems that third party candidates and third parties themselves are usually just a flash in the pan, who once in a while seem to get their fifteen minutes of fame. Ross Perot a native Texan created lots of havoc on the 92 and 96 presidential elections. Also in the great state of Minnesota in 1998 Jesse Ventura became Governor while being a third party candidate. One can’t help but wonder who the next big third party candidate will be, and from which state they will come. Will this person come from a conservative state a liberal state, or will …

Fair Measure Of The Right To Vote: A Comparative Perspective On Voting Rights Enforcement In A Maturing Democracy, Janai S. Nelson

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The article examines the underenforcement of the right to vote in Ghana, focusing on the exclusion of incarcerated citizens (GICs) despite the 1992 Constitution granting universal adult suffrage. It argues that underenforcement stems from legislative, administrative, and judicial failures, undermining democratic principles. The Ghanaian Supreme Court's decision in OcanseyCHURCIL ruled that denying GICs the right to vote was unconstitutional, aligning with a broader interpretation of voting rights as fundamental. The article emphasizes the importance of explicit constitutional provisions and active enforcement by all government branches to sustain democracy, particularly in emerging democracies.

The Election Period And Regulation Of The Democratic Process, Saul Zipkin

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Vote From Beyond The Grave, Krysta R. Edwards

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Note, Making Ballot Initiatives Work: Some Assembly Required, Portia Pedro

Faculty Scholarship

For over one hundred years, the ballot initiative or proposition has been touted as a solution to some of the problems in the representative system of democracy in the United States. Depending on a state’s ballot initiative system, this mechanism enables citizens to make laws, to create or eliminate rights, or to amend the state’s constitution through a popular vote. Popular initiatives were initially intended to allow ordinary citizens to intervene in the democratic process when their representative officials were not carrying out their wishes. These proposition processes were supposed to create a space for public deliberation. By allowing the …

The Pursuit Of Perfection: Congressional Power To Enforce The Reconstruction Amendments, A. Christopher Bryant

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In June 2009 the Supreme Court avoided a decision on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act's preclearance requirement, while at the same time managing to foreshadow that provision's ultimate demise. In a separate opinion, Justice Thomas announced that he would have reached the issue and invalidated the preclearance requirement. Conceding that unconstitutional racial discrimination in the administration of elections continued to be an unfortunate reality, he asserted that Congress was not permitted to pursue "perfect compliance" with the Constitution's mandate via the use of "broad prophylactic legislation."

Justice Thomas's statement accurately, though to be sure rather starkly, expressed an …

Citizens Disunited, Steven L. Winter

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

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

All Faculty Scholarship

“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 …

Voter Deception, Gilda R. Daniels

All Faculty Scholarship

In our recent electoral history, deceptive practices have been utilized to suppress votes in an attempt to affect election results. In most major elections, citizens endure warnings of arrest, deportation, and even violence if they attempt to vote. In many instances, these warnings are part of a larger scheme to suppress particular voters, whom I call “unwanted voters,” from exercising the franchise. Recent advancements in technology provide additional opportunities for persons to deceive voters, such as calls alerting citizens that Republicans (Whites) vote on Tuesday and Democrats vote (Blacks) on Wednesday. In spite of this resurgence of deception, the statutes …

The Transformation Of Freedom Of Speech: Unsnarling The Twisted Roots Of Citizens United V. Fec, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 69 (2010), Steven J. André

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Voting Power Without Responsibility Or Risk: How Should Proxy Reform Address The Decoupling Of Economic And Voting Rights, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act In The Hands Of A Conservative Court, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay argues that the future of the majority-minority district is in peril, as a conservative majority on the Court stands poised to strike down section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. When the Court takes up the constitutionality of Section 2, binding precedent will play a secondary role at best. Instead, the Justices’ policy goals and ideological preferences - namely, their personal disdain for the use of race in public life - will guide the Court’s conclusion. In this vein, Justice Kennedy holds the fate of the Act in his hands. To be clear, this Essay is not trying …

A Bridge Too Far? Directive 1344.10 And The Military's Inroads On Core Political Speech In Campaign Media, Andrew A. Pinson

Georgia Law Review

In early 2008, the Department of Defense issued Directive 1344.10. Paragraph4.3.2.1 of the Directive prohibits non- active-duty military members who are nominees or candidates for political office from using images of themselves in uniform as the "primary graphic representation"in any campaign media. With the stroke of a pen, the Department of Defense effectively barred a powerful symbol of many a candidate's character, experience, and knowledge from use while on the campaign trail. This new regulation sets the stage for an epic clash between two entrenched doctrines: the strong First Amendment protection the Supreme Court has long afforded political campaign expression …

Judicial Elections In The Aftermath Of White, Caperton, And Citizens United, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Myth Of The Level Playing Field: Knowledge, Affect, And Repetition In Public Debate, Jeremy N. Sheff

Faculty Publications

The industrialization of the channels and scale of communication has led some well-meaning reformers to try to regulate the ability of powerful private actors to leverage economic inequality into political inequality, particularly in the area of campaign finance. Such reform efforts are ostensibly intended to further the deliberative democratic ideal of rational, informed public decision making by preventing well-funded private interests from improperly influencing democratic debate and, by extension, political outcomes. This Article examines empirical findings in political science, psychology, and marketing and argues that, in the context of contemporary American society, the normative principles of deliberative democracy and formal …

Fair Measure Of The Right To Vote: A Comparative Perspective Of Voting Rights Enforcement In A Maturing Democracy, Janai S. Nelson

Faculty Publications

Constitutional text and government action are at times discordant in important ways. This discrepancy occurs in both mature and emerging democracies. It can result in the underenforcement of constitutional norms and implicate the rule of law. When the constitutional norm involves the right to vote, the gap between constitutions and governance inevitably triggers concerns about democracy as well. There is rich and ample debate within American legal scholarship over the effect of the underenforcement of constitutional norms on the scope and meaning of the norm. The arguments generally fall into one of two camps. One strand of argument suggests that …

Anti-Regulatory Absolutism In The Campaign Arena: Citizens United And The Implied Slippery Slope, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Supreme Court’s constitutional campaign jurisprudence is its longstanding, profound hostility to virtually any government regulation whatsoever of campaign speech and spending. Such an approach is highly unusual in constitutional law, which typically tolerates at least some level of regulatory intervention even with respect to strongly protected rights. The Court’s behavior in this respect is consistent with – and, I argue, is best understood as – the kind of behavior in which a court engages when it fears a slide down a slippery slope. But what lies at the bottom of the slope? And …

The Dignity Of Voters—A Dissent, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Since the waning days of the Burger Court, the federal judiciary has developed a generally well-deserved reputation for hostility to constitutional claims of individual right. In the field of democratic process, however, the Supreme Court has not only affirmed and expanded the applications of previously recognized rights, but has also regularly recognized new individual rights and deployed them with considerable vigor. The latest manifestation of this trend appears to be the emergence of a new species of vote dilution claim that recognizes a constitutionally grounded right against having one’s vote “cancelled out” by fraud or error in the casting and …

English Only?--The "Power" Of Kentucky's Official Language Statute, Mark A. Flores

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Standardizing The Principles Of International Election Observation, Jonathan Misk

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On October 27, 2005, thirty-two international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) signed the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, drafted with the assistance of the United Nations. For nearly four decades before the signing of the Declaration, international election observation rapidly gained acceptance as a legitimate method of guaranteeing free and fair elections and thus promoting lasting democratic institutions. Many INGOs and IGOs conducting observation missions--including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of American States, the South African Development Community, and the Carter Center-independently developed standards for their observers to follow. As international …

Behavioral Decision Theory And Implications For The Supreme Court’S Campaign Finance Jurisprudence, Molly J. Walker Wilson

All Faculty Scholarship

America stands at a moment in history when advances in the understanding of human decision-making are increasing the strategic efficacy of political strategy. As campaign spending for the presidential race reaches hundreds of millions of dollars, the potential for harnessing the power of psychological tactics becomes considerable. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has characterized campaign money as “speech” and has required evidence of corruption or the appearance of corruption in order to uphold restrictions on campaign expenditures. Ultimately, the Court has rejected virtually all restrictions on campaign spending on the ground that expenditures, unlike contributions, do not contribute to corruption or …

Too Much Of A Good Thing: Campaign Speech After Citizens United, Molly J. Walker Wilson

All Faculty Scholarship

In January 2010, the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the portion of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission that restricted independent corporate expenditures, as codified in section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Specifically, Citizens United invalidated laws forbidding corporations and unions from using general treasury funds for “electioneering communication,” political advocacy transmitted by broadcast, cable, or satellite communication in the period leading up to a federal election. The effect of Citizens United was to protect the right of corporations, no less than individual American citizens, to fund …

Defending The Majoritarian Court, Amanda Frost

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Countering The Majoritarian Difficulty, Amanda Frost

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Most state court judges are elected to office, and thus must be attentive to voter preferences just like other elected officials. Critics of judicial elections fear that subjecting judges to majoritarian pressures jeopardizes the rights of disfavored groups and undermines the rule of law, and accordingly call for their abolition. The reality, however, is that judicial elections are firmly entrenched in thirty-eight states, and thus appear to be a permanent part of the legal landscape. This article suggests that the so-called “majoritarian difficulty” posed by elected judges can be tempered by regular interactions with appointed, life-tenured federal judges, who are …