"Americans are required to pay taxes, serve on juries, get their kids vaccinated, get driver's licenses, and sometimes go to war for their country. So why not ask--or require--every American to vote? E.J. Dionne and Miles Rapoport argue that universal participation in our elections should be a cornerstone of our system. It would be the surest way to protect against voter suppression and the active disenfranchisement of a large share of our citizens....

Nicholas Seabrook, authority on constitutional and election law, and expert on gerrymandering, begins with the earliest gerrymandering (pronounced with a hard 'g'!) before our nation's founding with the rigging of American elections for partisan and political gain and the election-meddling of the colonial governor of North Carolina (George Burrington) in retaliation against his critics. The author writes of Patrick Henry, who used redistricting to...

Kaum ein Land der freien westlichen Welt braucht Direkte Demokratie nötiger als Deutschland ... ... denn fast nirgendwo ist das Volk so schwach und die Demokratie durch den herrschenden Parteienstaat so weit ausgehöhlt. In über 60 Jahren haben Parteien ihre Macht und materielle Habgier auf alle öffentlichen Bereiche ausgedehnt: Regierung, Fraktionen, Parlament, Verwaltung, staatliche Medien und sogar aufs Bundesverfassungsgericht. Die Zeit des...

Dynasties and Interludes provides a comprehensive and unique overview of elections and voting in Canada from Confederation to the recent spate of minority governments. Its principal argument is that the Canadian political landscape has consisted of long periods of hegemony of a single party and/or leader (dynasties), punctuated by short, sharp disruptions brought about by the sudden rise of new parties, leaders, or social movements (interludes). Changes...

Elections are a pre-condition for democratic governance since it is through them that the citizens of a country choose freely, and on the basis of the law, the persons that can legitimately govern in their name and in their interest. The right to free elections, as enshrined in the Article 3 of the Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, is a "fundamental principle in a truly democratic political regime". It comprises a series of safeguards...

How similar was the disputed presidential election of 1876 to the events of the presidential election of 2020 and were the disputes finally resolved constitutionally in 1876? In 1906, Paul Leland Haworth (1876-1936) sorted out the events of the controversial 1876 election in his book titled, "The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election of 1876." The results of the 1876 presidential election remain among the most disputed ever. Although it is not...

The truth matters. As our elected representatives make vital decisions on our behalf, an essential requirement of a functioning democracy is that the people in governance are honest with the electorate. Vote for Honesty and Get Democracy Done: Four Simple Steps to Change Politics seeks solutions to the increasing problem of dishonest behaviour by some UK politicians. It is an action plan: simple and politically neutral to force political change. This...

I An urgent primer on what can be done to combat emerging threats to the core of U.S. democracy-presidential elections. "Hirsch does a very good job of offering historical context to illuminate the present-and the terrifying future. His imaginative proposals are probably too sensible to be implemented in an age of parochial partisanship."-David Shipler, former reporter for the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize winner In 2000, we learned that an exceptionally...

The flaws in the American electoral process have become more apparent over many years. The contemporary tipping point in public awareness occurred during the 2000 election count, but several major structural weaknesses exacerbated doubts in the 2016 campaign, worsening party divisions and further corroding public trust in the electoral process. It is impossible to fix a problem without understanding its nature. To gather independent evidence about...