Election Law

The third edition of America Votes! is a timely resource for Sawyers, professors, election officials, and administrators, providing a snapshot of key election and voting rights issues from practitioners highly experienced in a wide variety of areas. Part 1 details the election administration processes, challenges, and opportunities at the local and national level. Included are chapters on the FEC, enforcing federal election law, using census data to prove citizenship, and administrative challenges for recounts, contests; and postelection audits. Part 2 details the Voting Rights Act and discusses rights of language-minority voters, voter suppression tactics including voter ID laws, immigration voting rights, and redistricting issues to watch during the current redistricting cycle. Part 3 details the challenges of redistricting and includes state legislative reapportionment, Section 2 vote-dilution litigation, and corporate districting and the Voting Rights Act. Book jacket.

This book covers the fast-changing landscape of campaign finance and lobbying laws. The sixth edition offers an introduction and a summary of the basic principles. Numerous court decisions and new laws dramatically altered the ways in which groups, including corporations, could lawfully finance political activity outside of the political parties and the candidates. Independent advertisers and super political action committees (PACs) have new roles and new rules since the last edition (2006). Contribution limits have changed and aggregate limits on individuals have been eliminated. In addition, the Lobbying Disclosure Act, as well as new congressional ethics rules, have increased compliance burdens for persons engaged in lobbying and government relations.

This book created the field of the law of democracy, offering a systematic account of the legal construction of American democracy. This edition represents a significant revision that reflects the embattled state of democracy in the U.S. and abroad. With the addition of Franita Tolson as well as Nathaniel Persily to the prior edition, the book now turns to a changed legal environment following the radical reconfiguration of the Voting Rights Act, the rise of social media and circumvention of the formal channels of campaign finance, and the increased fragmentation of political parties. Strikingly, in the current political environment the right to register and vote passes from being a largely historical inquiry to a source of front-burner legal challenge. This edition further streamlines the coverage of the Voting Rights Act, expands the scope of coverage of campaign finance and political corruption issues, and turns to the new dispute over voter access to the ballot. The section on election litigation and remedies has been expanded to address the expanded range of legal challenges to election results. For the first time, this book isolates the distinct problems of presidential elections, ranging from the conflict over federal and state law in Bush v. Gore, to the distinct challenges to the 2020 presidential elections, to the renewed focus on the Electoral Count Act. The basic structure of the book continues to follow the historical development of the individual right to vote; current struggles over gerrymandering; the relationship of the state to political parties; the constitutional and policy issues surrounding campaign-finance reform; and the tension between majority rule and fair representation of minorities in democratic bodies.

This book is now available in paperback. The first edition of Election Law was the first modern casebook on the subject of election law. Now in its fifth edition, the leading election law casebook covers the right to vote and voter turnout, legislative districting, the Voting Rights Act, racial gerrymandering cause of action, ballot propositions, constitutional rights and obligations of political parties, bribery, regulation of campaign speech, campaign finance, and election administration. The streamlined and student-friendly fifth edition of Election Law fully covers developments in election law in the 2012 election season including: extensive coverage of Citizens United, super PACs, and other campaign finance developments; emerging issues in voting rights and redistricting, including coverage of the Texas redistricting and voter identification cases; and new coverage of issues in judicial elections. It will continue to include perspectives from law and political science, and is appropriate in both law and political science courses. The extensive campaign finance coverage makes the book appropriate for a campaign finance seminar as well. Supplement Description The 2015 Supplement to the fifth edition of Election Law: Cases and Materials is up to date through the end of the Supreme Court's October 2014 term. It includes an edited version of the Supreme Court's new campaign finance case, McCutcheon v. FEC, an edited version of Shelby County v. Holder, and coverage of the Supreme Court's consideration of new redistricting cases from Alabama and Arizona, raising new questions about racial gerrymandering claims and the scope of state power to enact citizen redistricting commissions for congressional districts via voter initiative. The supplement also considers developments in Voting Rights Act litigation after the Supreme Court's Shelby County case, including new disputes over voter identification requirements, and covers litigation over citizenship and other state registration and voting requirements under the Elections Clause following the Supreme Court's opinion in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council. It also covers the Susan B. Anthony false campaign speech case. Professors who adopt this casebook for their courses can receive complimentary copies of the supplement by emailing their requests to comp (at) cap-press (dot) com.

Click here to view or download the 2020 supplement to this book. Voting Rights and Election Law is a law school text book covering the law surrounding the electoral system. Coverage begins with voting qualifications and barriers to exercise of the franchise. The book covers the authority of the courts to remedy violations of the right to vote. Other topics include the One/One Vote Doctrine under the Federal Constitution and the effects of the Voting Rights Act. The book also covers the role of political parties and term limits for federal and state office. Campaign finance and political speech each receive treatment. The book concludes with a chapter on methods for remedying errors in elections. In Chapter 1 students examine questions surrounding the constitutional right to vote and legislatures' power to restrict the classes of persons entitled to the franchise. The remainder of the text proceeds chronologically through the electoral process, from districting, with its issues of one person, one vote and the role of race under the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, to the place of political parties in the electoral and constitutional structure, to limitations on ballot access, to the First Amendment's protection of political speech, including an in-depth treatment of campaign finance, to rules governing the voting process itself, to vote-counting, to remedies for elections that have gone wrong. Compared to other casebooks in the field, Voting Rights and Election Law emphasizes the texts of leading court opinions rather than commentary and political-science research. The book focuses on the legal principles and language adopted by courts in deciding election cases, rather than competing political theories about elections and democracy. Students are, however, encouraged through notes and questions to examine and question the empirical assumptions and theoretical premises behind the opinions. Some of the new cases included in this Second Edition are: Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder (2013)--striking down Voting Rights Act coverage formula U.S. v. Alvarez (2012) and Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus (2014)--false statements in campaigns Doe v. Reed (2010)--public access to names of referendum petition signers Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar (2015)--ban on judicial candidates soliciting campaign funds McCutcheon v. FEC (2014)--aggregate contribution limits to all candidates Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (2011)--state matching funds for opting in to state limitations This book also is available in a three-hole punched, alternative loose-leaf version printed on 8.5 x 11 inch paper with wider margins and with the same pagination as the hardbound book.