Regulating the Political Process: Voting and Election Law

Regulating the Political Process: Voting and Election Law
This course will explore the law governing the right to vote in the United States. It will examine the way the law and other forces have shaped the structure of American political participation, and will consider alternative directions American democracy might take. Topics will include the 2000 presidential election dispute, the individual right to vote, reapportionment, representation of minority interests in democratic bodies, preclearance procedures, political and racial gerrymandering, direct democracy, and alternative voting systems. A central aim of this course is to explore general issues of democratic theory in the context of the legal frameworks and the actual institutions that regulate American democracy.