PS 4990: Election Reform

In The Right to Vote, Duke historian Alexander Keyssar explores the evolution of suffrage over the course of the nation's history. Examining the many features of the history of the right to vote in the U.S.--class, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, and age--the book explores the conditions under which American democracy has expanded and contracted over the years.

Countless books have been written about the civil rights movement, but far less attention has been paid to what happened after the dramatic passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the turbulent forces it unleashed. In this groundbreaking narrative history, Ari Berman charts both the transformation of American democracy under the VRA and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit it from the moment the act was signed into law. The VRA is widely regarded as the crowning achievement ofthe civil rights movement, and yet--more than fifty years later--the battles over race, representation, and political power continue, as lawmakers devise new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth, while the Supreme Court has declared a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.

In Bending Toward Justice, celebrated historian Gary May describes how black voters overcame centuries of bigotry to secure and preserve one of their most important rights as American citizens.

An impassioned call to the clergy, community activists, and educators to remember and keep alive the story of the black-led freedom movement. Harding argues the importance of knowing for ourselves, incorporating into our lives, and teaching to others the events and goals of this historic movement.

Living in Infamy: Felon Disfranchisement and the History of American Citizenship examines the history of disfranchisement for criminal conviction in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Riser chronicles numerous significant antidisfranchisement cases, from South Carolina's Mills v. Green (1985), the first such case to reach the Supreme Court, and Williams v. Mississippi, (1898), the well-known but little-understood challenge to Mississippi's constitution, to the underappreciated landmark Giles v. Harris -- described as the "Second Dred Scott" by contemporaries -- in which the Court upheld Alabama's 1901 state constitution. In between, he examines a host of voting rights campaigns waged throughout the country and legal challenges initiated across the South by both black and white southerners. Often disputatious, frequently disorganized, and woefully underfunded, the antidisfranchisement activists of 1890--1908 lost, and badly; in some cases, their repeated and infuriating defeats not only left the status quo in place but actually made things worse. Regardless, they brought attention to the problem and identified the legal questions and procedural difficulties facing African Americans.

Design for Democracy builds on the lessons of 2000 by presenting innovative steps for redesigning elections in the service of citizens. This volume showcases adaptable design models that can improve almost every part of the election process by maximizing the clarity and usability of ballots, registration forms, posters and signs, informational brochures and guides, and even administrative materials for poll workers.