From raised hands to hanging chads, people communicating opinions is a fundamental attribute of democratic practice based on the profound belief that elected representatives implement the preferences of the people. The Florida fiasco of 'hanging chads' brought to international attention the inexact methods of counting votes. But while that case received much exposure, it was not the first time that outdated and flawed methods of registering votes generated drama, affected election outcomes, and created doubt in the fairness and representativeness of America's election system. Saltman here traces the evolution of voting technology in the USA, from voice to digital, highlighting how the antiquated systems in use today are a legacy of the industrial revolution of the 19th-century and the early computer revolution of the 1950s. Why certain technologies are adopted rather than others create a sad picture of this elemental civic duty.

In the sixty-four days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on six states - Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - Trump's supporters claimed widespread voter fraud. Caught up in this effort were scores of activists, lawyers, judges and state and local officials, among them Rohn Bishop, enthusiastic chairman of the Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, Republican Party, who would be branded a traitor for refusing to say his state's election was tainted, and Ruby Freeman, a part-time ballot counter in Atlanta who found herself accused of being a 'professional vote scammer' by the President. Working with a team of researchers and reporters, Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague uncover never-before-told accounts from the election officials fighting to do their jobs amid outlandish claims and threats to themselves, their colleagues and their families. The Steal is an engaging, in-depth report on what happened during those crucial nine weeks and a portrait of the heroic individuals who did their duty and stood firm against the unprecedented, sustained attack on the US election system and ensured that every legal vote was counted and the will of the people prevailed.

For decades, journalists have called the winners of U.S. presidential elections-often in error-well before the closing of the polls. In Votes That Count and Voters Who Don't, Sharon E. Jarvis and Soo-Hye Han investigate what motivates journalists to call elections before the votes have been tallied and, more importantly, what this and similar practices signal to the electorate about the value of voter participation. Jarvis and Han track how journalists have told the story of electoral participation during the last eighteen presidential elections, revealing how the portrayal of voters in the popular press has evolved over the last half century from that of mobilized partisan actors vital to electoral outcomes to that of pawns of political elites and captives of a flawed electoral system. The authors engage with experiments and focus groups to reveal the effects that these portrayals have on voters and share their findings in interviews with prominent journalists. Votes That Count and Voters Who Don't not only explores the failings of the media but also shows how the story of electoral participation might be told in ways that support both democratic and journalistic values. At a time when professional strategists are pressuring journalists to provide favorable coverage for their causes and candidates, this book invites academics, organizations, the press, and citizens alike to advocate for the voter's place in the news.

The first section of this book presents arithmetic evidence that Alfred Smith was a strong Democratic candidate in 1928. The second presents statistical proof that the so-called liquor, religious, and metropolitan issues had no significant relation to Smith's electoral strength. The third and final section is concerned with problems of political historiography in the study of American elections.

Power, Freedom, and Voting is an interdisciplinary book that presents a comprehensive insight into current research by economists, mathematicians, philosophers and political scientists on three intimately related concepts that are at the heart of theories of democracy and social welfare. The editors have brought together some of the leading scholars in the different fields to create a distinctive volume. Chapters include contributions on foundational and methodological issues in the definition and measurement of power and freedom and empirical studies of power and coalition formation in voting bodies. The volume also contains contributions that make an effort to bridge the gaps between different disciplinary approaches, including one on the importance of Machiavelli's writing as a reference point for modern political theory, and others on the related concepts of fairness and responsibility. A majority of the chapters make use of game theory.

What's the real story behind the 2000 presidential election fiasco? Hanging Chads presents candid and insightful interviews with key figures in the post-election recount in Florida, which decided whether Al Gore or George W. Bush would win the closest presidential contest ever. The book features an introduction that clearly explains the often complex and convoluted legal manoeuvering that occurred during those tense thirty-six days of the recount, a timeline laying out the sequence of events, a cast of characters that identifies the key players on both sides, and a glossary of the court cases and legal terminology that came into play. Pleasants interviews the two main Florida lawyers, Dexter Douglass for Gore and Barry Richard for Bush, and discusses the decision-making process with three judges involved in key cases. The book includes the viewpoint of the press and key political players like Tom Feeney, the Florida legislature's Speaker of the House, and Mac Stipanovich, a key political advisor to Katherine Harris. In addition, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore explains why she chose the infamous butterfly ballot that sent the whole process into motion. Providing a unique and balanced insiders' view of one of the most important events in recent history, Hanging Chads is a must-have for students and historians of American politics.

The Encyclopaedia of European Elections provides readers with a full set of tools to understand one of the most fascinating acts of democratic participation in contemporary Western Europe. Leading scholars from a range of disciplines cover an extensive variety of topics, from the genesis of European elections to the behaviour of young voters via the role of the media, and from the various legal and electoral systems used to the impact of the elections on European identity via the evolution of turnout between 1979 and 2004. The volume also includes entries on each country, each political party group in the European Parliament, and over 140 political, historical, sociological, philosophical, and legal aspects of the elections.

Direct democracy is popular. Referenda are an increasingly important means of enacting or preventing legislation in countries around the world. This book focuses on the key actors in a referendum (the political elites/ parties, the media and citizens) and is centered around themes such as campaign style, campaign effects, electoral mobilization and turnout, as well as vote choice. The contributors specifically address the role of referendum campaigns and their impact and show why referendum campaigns may matter more than any other political election campaigns.

When John Kennedy won the presidency in 1960, he also won the right to put his own spin on the victory--whether as an underdog's heroic triumph or a liberal crusader's overcoming special interests. Now W. J. Rorabaugh cuts through the mythology of this famous election to explain the nuts-and-bolts operations of the campaign and offer a corrective to Theodore White's flawed classic, "The Making of the President."

War hero, champion of labor, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, JFK was long on charisma. Despite a less than liberal record, he assumed the image of liberal hero--thanks to White and other journalists who were shamelessly manipulated by the Kennedy campaign. Rorabaugh instead paints JFK as the ideological twin of Nixon and his equal as a bare-knuckled politician, showing that Kennedy's hard-won, razor-thin victory was attributable less to charisma than to an enormous amount of money, an effective campaign organization, and television image-making.

The 1960 election, Rorabaugh argues, reflects the transition from the dominance of old-style boss and convention politics to the growing significance of primaries, race, and especially TV-without which Kennedy would have been neither nominated nor elected. He recounts how JFK cultivated delegates to the 1960 Democratic convention; quietly wooed the still-important party bosses; and used a large personal organization, polls, and TV advertising to win primaries. JFK's master stroke, however, was choosing as a running mate Lyndon Johnson, whose campaigning in the South carried enough southern states to win the election.

On the other side, Rorabaugh draws on Nixon's often-ignored files to take a close look at his dysfunctional campaign, which reflected the oddities of a dark and brooding candidate trapped into defending the Eisenhower administration. Yet the widely detested Nixon won almost as many votes as the charismatic Kennedy, even though Democrats outnumberd Republicans by three to two. This leads Rorabaugh to reexamine the darker side of the election: the Republicans' charges of vote fraud in Illinois and Texas, the use of money to prod or intimidate, manipulation of the media, and the bulldozing of opponents.

White and others helped shape persisting impressions of both candidates, influencing the way Nixon conducted subsequent campaigns and the Democrats nurtured the Kennedy legacy. The Real Making of the President gives us a more sobering look at all of that, fundamentally reshaping our understanding of one of the nation's most memorable elections.

The most definitive report ever on verdict effects, this book gives striking new evidence that media assessments of presidential debates sway voters. The authors conducted 2,350 surveys and extensive analysis of news reports to scrutinize the post-debate news of 1988. They also examined the effects of the attack ads used by Bush and Dukakis. They found that the news media consistently downplay debate content and instead emphasize their own views on candidate performance--media verdicts influence voters as much as the debates themselves.

Extensive content analyses and more than 2,350 surveys were conducted to analyze media verdicts on the 1988 debates. The verdicts on Bush, Dukakis, Quayle, and Bentsen announced in post-debate newscasts are compared with those from debates in 1984, 1980 and 1976. The study finds that the news media consistently downplay debate content and instead emphasize their own views on candidate performance. These media verdicts influence voters as much as the debates themselves. The study also examines the effects of attack ads used by Bush and Dukakis, and finds that they backfired--network news probably rebroadcast more excerpts of attack ads in 1988 than ever before. Television journalists, the essays in this book show, have become increasingly less interested in how the debates served the information needs of the voters and increasingly more preoccupied with how they affected the ambitions of the candidates. A noticeable trend in 1988 was as the fall debates went on, voters' beliefs that further debates would be helpful to them went down. Another finding of the study deals with a huge tactical error that the League of Women Voters committed by simultaneously announcing its withdrawal and blasting the format and ground rules imposed on it by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Also, the spin doctors who continually spouted insider information during the 1988 campaign gained more legitimacy and impact than ever before--and had a very strong effect on American public affairs journalism. This intriguing book, which also provides policy recommendations for the debates, their sponsors, and the news media, is useful to journalists, researchers, and civic groups concerned with elections, government, campaign reform, and communications.

During the early 1990s the Department of Justice used its Voting Rights Act power to object to racially unfair redistricting laws to force states to maximize minority congressional districts. The results were dramatic: Congressional Black Caucus membership swelled from 25 to 38 and nine new Hispanic congresspersons were sworn in. Only three years later, the maximization strategy lay in ruins. The courts forced many of the new minority districts to be redrawn and the judiciary reserved especially harsh criticism for the Department.

Cunningham examines and analyzes how the Department came to adopt the maximization strategy. He explores the bureaucratic culture of the Division's Voting Section, its history, and the interaction of its progressive career staff with more conservative political appointees. The Division works amidst a vibrant interest group environment, with civil rights advocates, the state, and political parties eager for influence. Cunningham shows how that influence contest was won by the civil rights groups, how their preferred interpretations of fair redistricting and discriminatory purpose were adopted by the Division, and how their chosen districting models were forced upon states by the Division. He examines the effect the Department has had on federalism, representation, and its own impaired credibility with the judiciary. Finally, he suggests how the Division might resurrect its damaged reputation for balanced enforcement. An important study for scholars, students, and public policy makers involved with civil rights, public administration, and public law.

Paperback Edition: Updated and with a New Foreword

"Superbly organized, with clarity and concision, Greene's book offers a highly readable, nonpartisan guidebook for those who don't speak legalese."
--"The National Journal"

"When future historians chronicle the battle of Bush v. Gore, they'll turn to Understanding the 2000 Election. Greene provides a clear, sophisticated, and accessible guide through the thicket of law and politics that surrounded the most surreal Presidential election of modern times."
--George Stephanopoulos

"Abner Greene is not only an outstanding legal analyst but agifted storyteller. He has given us an extraordinarily thoughtful, illuminating and (happily) highly readable account of the various legal battles fought in the five weeks after the 2000 Election. The author promises to break down the complexity of the legal issues so lawyers and nonlawyers alike can follow along--and he succeeds brilliantly."
--Yale Kamisar, Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor of Law, University of Michigan

"The 2000 presidential election will be remembered as one of the most astonishing political, legal and constitutional events in American history. In Understanding the 2000 Election, Abner Greene traces each step in this extraordinary story with clarity and insight. With a careful eye for detail, and a generous perspective that highlights his sense of the good faith of each of the conflicting participants, Greene offers what will inevitably be a controversial understanding of these events that reveals the 2000 presidential election as a triumph of law and civility over brute politics and unprincipled power."
--Geoffrey R. Stone, HarryKalven, Jr., Distinguished Service Professor of Law, The University of Chicago

aIn an attempt to avoid heated rhetoric . . . Abner Greene's book . . . offers a simple and straightforward explanation of key terms in the litigation process, as well as the statutory and constitutional provisions at issue. It offers no real commentary on whether any of the court decisions at any level were right or wrong. Instead, it leaves all analysis of the situation to the reader. The book is a good step-by-step discussion of this complicated litigation. . . worthwhile just for its clear and concise definitions of the terminology that all the election lawsuits produced.a
--"Law and Politics Book Review"

The nation will not soon forget the drama of the 2000 presidential election. For five weeks we were transfixed by the legal clashes that enveloped the country from election night to the Gore concession. It was instant history, and will be studied by historians, lawyers, political scientists, media critics and others for years to come.

Even for those who followed the events most closely, the legal twists and turns of the post-election struggles seemed at times bewildering. We witnessed manual recounts of election ballots, GOP federal court lawsuits challenging those recounts, two Florida Supreme Court opinions, lawsuits over butterfly and absentee ballots, questions about the role of the Florida legislature and the United States Congress in resolving presidential election disputes, and two United States Supreme Court decisions, the second of which finally handed the election to Bush. Although the 2000 Presidency was decided through much legal wrangling, one should not have to be a lawyer tounderstand how we came to have Bush rather than Gore as our President in that hotly contested election.

Understanding the 2000 Election offers an accessible, comprehensive guide to the legal battles that finally gave George W. Bush the Presidency five weeks after election night. Meant to stand next to and clarify the numerous journalistic and personal accounts of the election drama, Understanding the 2000 Election offers a offers a step-by-step, non-partisan explanation and analysis of the major legal issues involved in resolving the presidential contest. The volume also offers a clear overview of the Electoral College, its history, what would be involved in switching over to a direct election, and the likely future of the Presidential electoral process. While some still decry the 2000 election outcome as the result of political manipulation rather than the rule of law, Greene shows that almost every legal conclusion of the post-election struggle can be understood through the application of legal principle, rather than politics.

This title gives students and other users a clear understanding of the true state of voting and representative democracy in the United States by impartially examining claims surrounding voter fraud, voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other voting-related issues in the U.S. This work is part of a series that uses evidence-based documentation to examine the veracity of claims and beliefs about high-profile issues in American culture and politics. Each book in the Contemporary Debates series is intended to puncture rather than perpetuate myths that diminish our understanding of important policies and positions; to provide needed context for misleading statements and claims; and to confirm the factual accuracy of other assertions. This particular volume examines beliefs, claims, and myths about voting and elections in the United States. Issues covered include constitutional provisions concerning the franchise, constitutional amendments expanding the vote to previously disenfranchised groups, the specific provisions of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, and modern-day controversies swirling around claims of voter suppression for partisan gain, voter fraud, and partisan gerrymandering. All of these issues are examined in individualized entries, with objective responses grounded in up-to-date evidence.

This book presents the results of a new comparative research project on the trajectories, motivations, perceptions and attitudes of young members (aged 18-25) of 15 different European political parties in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Norway and Hungary. The project combined a mass survey of 2919 young party members with 517 in-depth interviews.

In 2015, Matteo Renzi's government continued to elicit contrasting reactions while dealing with both internal and external constraints. Some say it passed crucial reforms for economic development in fields such as the labor market, the banking system, education, and public administration, in addition to passing a new electoral law. However, others criticize the substance and, even more, the way reforms were passed by constructing variable parliamentary majorities according to the vote at hand, thus avoiding the need to build consensual decision-making relationships with interest groups and further centralizing power in the office of the prime minister. Be that as it may, the government was able to impose its own agenda in domestic affairs. Although the success of the 2015 Universal Exposition in Milan helped to bolster the image of the country, Italy continued to play a marginal role in key international areas, such as migration, European austerity policies, and the fight against terrorism.

Moreland and Steed bring an overall analysis of presidential politics in the South together with a state-by-state analysis and updated data on the 1996 presidential elections in each southern state. The 1996 elections are placed within the context of recent party and electoral developments in the South, particularly as those relate to fundamental changes in the party system and the ascendancy of the Republican Party.

The South is a region undergoing significant partisan change, and that change has substantial implications for national politics. This volume analyzes the South's role in the 1996 presidential nomination process, issues as southerners saw them in 1996, and the role of third parties in the South. The volume also analyzes the results of the 1996 presidential election in each of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy. The 1996 elections are placed within the context of recent party and electoral developments in the South, particularly as those relate to fundamental changes in the party system and the ascendancy of the Republican Party.

This volume is unique in that there is no other analysis of the 1996 elections that has a southern regional focus. This is the fourth of a series of volumes on presidential elections in the South edited by Moreland and Steed, and together these studies constitute a valuable resource for those interested in Southern politics, presidential elections, and American political parties in general.

This book studies the proportion of women in national parliaments. More precisely, it seeks to identify the factors that influence the percentage of female parliamentarians, paying particular attention to the electoral system. The author seeks to understand a profound political movement, that of the third wave of democratization of political systems, through the particular perspective of female representation in parliaments. Although several books have been published on women in politics, none have focused on electoral systems as an explanation for the proportion of women in national parliaments.

Money is essential to the functioning of electoral politics, yet regulating its appropriate use raises complex and controversial challenges in countries around the world. Both long-established democracies and emerging economies have been continually plagued by problems of financial malfeasance, graft, corruption, and cronyism. To throw new light on these important challenges, this book addresses three related questions: (1) what types of public policies are commonly used in attempts to regulate the role of money in politics?, (2) what triggers landmark finance reforms? and, (3) above all, what works, what fails, and why - when countries implement reforms? Checkbook Elections? presents an original theory for understanding policies regulating political finance, reflecting the degree to which laws are laissez-faire or guided by state intervention. Each chapter is written by an area specialist and collectively cover long-established democracies as well as hybrid regimes, affluent post-industrial societies (Sweden, the United States, Britain, and Japan), major emerging economies (Russia, Brazil, and South Africa) and developing societies (India and Indonesia).

In the Netherlands, the election programmes of the political parties are assessed for their economic impact by an independent economic bureau. The result of this analysis is published just before the elections take place. In this way, the voter will be protected against political parties that try to win the elections by making popular but unfounded financial promises.

Economic Assessment of Election Programmes contains contributions of several distinguished economists and philosophers who consider the gains of this procedure to society. Does the analysis by the Netherlands' Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) raise the democratic quality of the elections? Can we really be confident in the tools of economics? The last section of this volume states the opinion of representatives of the political parties. This part also clarifies why political parties voluntarily participate in this process and how they perceive the role division between the political party and CPB.

A 'non-election' in terms of popular perception, the 2004 European elections in the United Kingdom nevertheless provided a fascinating snapshot of the new, far more fluid electoral trends that have been emerging since the end of the Thatcher era, with Green, Eurosceptical, regional and single issue parties all jostling for electoral space with the bigger three. Like its predecessors, this book documents the background, framework and party preparations; recounts how the campaign unfolded; analyses the results and explores the consequences of the elections in both the British and the European context.

The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats each allow their members to participate in the selection of the party leader. It also examines the consequences of all-member ballots in leadership elections. It looks at how parties remove leaders, showing that each of the major British parties sought to make it harder to evict incumbents.

The European elections of 1999 highlight the liberation of the “European Question” from the old left-right conflicts. This electoral geography of Europe maps an increasingly diverse world of political opinion and commitment. The increasing strength of Green parties, the continued decline of European communism, and ethno-regionalism are some of the key issues that this book explores with the hope that Europe can begin constructing a real European public space within which a strong link to citizens can be woven.

This is a wide-ranging study of electoral politics in England between 1734 and 1832. It analyses the control of the electoral system by the upper classes, the world of the voters, and the function of an election in the unreformed period. The history of the electoral system has been distorted by later emphasis on the extent of corruption in the constituencies. Dr O'Gorman takes us deep into the political underworld normally left undisturbed by historians; that of the committee men, agents, and canvassers who made the unreformed system work for as long as it did. Above all, this book is about the voters - their motivations, prejudices, beliefs and ideals, as well as their numbers and political behaviour. Frank O'Gorman has combined computer analysis with traditional historical methods to reconstruct the social and ideological world of the voters, and argues that an understanding of the electoral dimension is vital to a broader understanding of the Hanoverian regime and its popular acceptance. The interaction of the parliamentary parties at Westminster with the older political culture of the constituencies is traced in the final part of this book. The nature of Hanoverian politics and society have been the subject of much recent debate, and this far-reaching analysis of the electorate takes us to the very heart of that social and political structure.

Historians have pointed to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign as the first time a presidential candidate relied extensively on public opinion polls. Since then, polling has come to define American politics, and is perhaps most clearly embodied in Bill Clinton, the most poll-driven president in history. Melvin G. Holli, however, reveals that reliance on public opinion polls dates to the New Deal Era, when Franklin D. Roosevelt employed a first-generation Finnish-American named Emil Hurja to conduct polls for his 1932 and 1936 campaigns. Roosevelt’s triumph in 1932 and in 1936, as well as the spectacular 1934 Democratic congressional victory, is legendary. What few people know is the story about what happened behind the scenes: Emil Hurja was the driving force behind the Democrats during the New Deal Era. Holli restores Hurja to his rightful place American history and politics, showing us that the Washington press corps were right on target when they dubbed Hurja the “Wizard of Washington.”

Potholm, a professor at Bowdoin and a prominent campaign consultant, here shares his insights into and enthusiasm for the democratic process. According to Potholm, the presidential election of 2000 revealed the strengths of our democratic system, not the weaknesses. What's more, it made for great entertainment. In The Delights of Democracy, Potholm shares his thoughts on why low voter turn-out is not exactly a bad thing, why Clinton was a good Republican president (that's right), how all political parties should be skilled in putting themselves in their opponents' position, how smart politicians can make use of public polling, how people who don't care about the abortion debate are the decisive group in votes on the issue, and more. Filled with examples from his behind-the-scenes political career, Potholm's book informs readers what Americans really mean when they call their country a democracy.