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How the history of American voting rights has shaped the way we vote today Coinciding with the 2020 US presidential election, Drawing the Vote, an original graphic novel, looks at the history of voting rights in the United States and how it affects the way we vote today.
The idea of voting is simple, but the administration of elections in ways that ensure access and integrity is complex. In How We Vote, Kathleen Hale and Mitchell Brown explore what is at the heart of our democracy: how elections are run.
Talking Politics? What You Need to Know before Opening Your Mouth provides a solid starting point from which Americans can build more persuasive arguments for their preferred policies, whatever they may be, and will interest students of political science, civics, and history, from high school to undergraduates, and the general public interested in politics and informed discussion.
Nothing is more integral to democracy than voting. Most people believe that every citizen has the civic duty or moral obligation to vote, that any sincere vote is morally acceptable, and that buying, selling, or trading votes is inherently wrong.
Local government is the hidden leviathan of American politics: it accounts for nearly a tenth of gross domestic product, it collects nearly as much in taxes as the federal government, and its decisions have an enormous impact on Americans' daily lives. Yet political scientists have few explanations for how people vote in local elections, particularly in the smaller cities, towns, and suburbs where most Americans live.
One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know.
The Ecology of Democracy: Finding Ways to Have a Stronger Hand in Shaping Our Future is for people who care deeply about their communities and their country but worry about problems that endanger their future and that of their children.
Which get-out-the-vote efforts actually succeed in ethnoracial communities—and why? Analyzing the results from hundreds of original experiments, the authors of this book offer a persuasive new theory to explain why some methods work while others don't.
Much has been written about the historic nature of the Obama campaign. The multi-year, multi-billion dollar operation elected the nation's first black president, raised and spent more money than any other election effort in history, and built the most sophisticated voter targeting technology ever before used on a national campaign.
As Washington elites drifted toward ideological poles over the past few decades, did ordinary Americans follow their lead? In The Partisan Sort, Matthew Levendusky reveals that we have responded to this trend but not, for the most part, by becoming more extreme ourselves. While polarization has filtered down to a small minority of voters, it also has had the more significant effect of reconfiguring the way we sort ourselves into political parties.
A timely analysis of the power and limits of political parties--and the lessons of the Civil War and the New Deal in the Age of Trump. American voters have long been familiar with the phenomenon of the presidential frontrunner. In 2008, it was Hillary Clinton. In 1844, it was Martin Van Buren. And in neither election did the prominent Democrat win the party's nomination. Insurgent candidates went on to win the nomination and the presidency, plunging the two-party system into disarray over the years that followed.
Alan I. Abramowitz has emerged as a leading spokesman for the view that our current political divide is not confined to a small group of elites and activists but a key feature of the American social and cultural landscape. The polarization of the political and media elites, he argues, arose and persists because it accurately reflects the state of American society. Here, he goes further: the polarization is unique in modern U.S. history.
Every two years, exit polls become the most widely analyzed written about and discussed data-set in the United States. Although exit polls are known for their use in predicting elections, they are in fact the best tool for explaining election results.
In the wake of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the case that allowed corporate and union spending in elections, many Americans despaired over the corrosive influence that private and often anonymous money can have on political platforms, campaigns, and outcomes at the federal and state level.
Across the US, cities and metropolitan areas are facing huge economic and competitive challenges that Washington won't, or can't, solve. The good news is that networks of metropolitan leaders - mayors, business and labor leaders, educators, and philanthropists - are stepping up and powering the nation forward.
Super Tuesday 1988 was the first successful attempt to get several states in one region to hold their presidential primaries on the same day. Its success -- or lack thereof -- will affect the way presidents are elected for many years to come.
The United States has not updated the Electoral College system since the Twelfth Amendment was ratified in 1804, despite public opinion polls showing a majority of Americans are in favor of changing or outright abolishing it.
The electoral college system has evolved continuously since the first presidential election. Despite a number of close contests, this arrangement has selected the candidate with the most popular votes in 48 of 52 presidential elections since the current voting system was established.
Has the South, once the "Solid South" of the Democratic Party, truly become an unassailable Republican stronghold? If so, when, where, why, and how did this seismic change occur? Moreover, what are the implications for the U.S. body politic?
Every ten years political representation in the U.S.House of Representatives is redistributed (reapportioned) among the fifty states. Vote Thieves explains a singular flaw that voters suspect but cannot put in plain words, and gives them the information they need to petition for a more responsive political system.
Administering Elections: how American elections work by
Administering Elections provides a digest of contemporary American election administration using a systems perspective. The authors provide insight into the interconnected nature of all components of elections administration, and sheds like on the potential consequences of reforms that fail to account for this.
After the People Vote: a guide to the Electoral College by
(Print and eBook) The extraordinary presidential election contest in 2000 raised new issues about the electoral process. In the third edition of After the People Vote: A Guide to the Electoral College, leading constitutional, political, and legal scholars use examples from that controversial election and other disputed elections to explain how the electoral college works.
Why Americans Still Don't Vote: And Why Politicians Want It That Way by
Americans take for granted that ours is the very model of a democracy. At the core of this belief is the assumption that the right to vote is firmly established. But in fact, the United States is the only major democratic nation in which the less well-off, the young, and minorities are substantially underrepresented in the electorate.
The U.S. Election System by
The unique way in which Americans elect their public officials is explored in this volume, from financing campaigns, to registering voters, to the function of the electoral college. Articles also examine the two-party system, the nomination and convention process, and issues particular to the 2004 election.
Presidential Elections: strategies and structures of American politics by
(Print and eBook) Brimming with data and examples from the tumultuous 2000 election and laced with previews of 2004, the eleventh edition of this classic text offers a complete overview of the presidential election process from the earliest straw polls and fundraisers to final voter turnout and exit interviews. The comprehensive coverage includes campaign strategy, the sequence of electoral events, and the issues, all from the perspective of the various actors in the election process: voters, interest groups, political parties, the media, and the candidates themselves.
Taming the Electoral College by
Taming the Electoral College explores poorly understood aspects of the electoral college, including two possibilities in particular that could pose the most serious danger for American democracy. These are, first, determination of the president by "faithless electors" who ignore the popular vote in their states, and, second, choice of the president in the House of Representatives, which is required if no electoral college majority votes in favor of a single candidate. In any given election, neither of these outcomes is likely, but the 2000 election showed that we would do well to take both of them seriously and take action now to prevent them from occurring. Both possibilities could be dealt with by constitutional amendment, but amendment is difficult to achieve, particularly as it bears on the electoral college process.
The Myth of the Rational Voter: why democracies choose bad policies by
The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book. Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand.
Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: why Americans vote the way they do by
(Print and eBook) On the night of the 2000 presidential election, Americans watched on television as polling results divided the nation's map into red and blue states. Since then the color divide has become symbolic of a culture war that thrives on stereotypes--pickup-driving red-state Republicans who vote based on God, guns, and gays; and elitist blue-state Democrats woefully out of touch with heartland values. With wit and prodigious number crunching, Andrew Gelman debunks these and other political myths.
Choosing a President: the electoral college and beyond by
Choosing a President evaluates the Electoral College system and six legitimate alternatives to it. A team of 37 political scientists consider the fundamental questions that go to the heart of the debate. On the basis of these deliberations, each contributor indicates the extent to which he or she supports or opposes the Electoral College and its alternatives.
Click here to look for more books in GIL-Find, the MGA Library online catalog.
Check out this website: The Commission on Presidential Debates for more information about historical and upcoming presidential and vice presidential debates.
Debate coverage and archives of some political events are available on C-SPAN.
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