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Voting Rights & Election Law

This collection is devoted to the electoral process: how elections are conducted, the strategy and controversies of political campaigns, how votes are counted, and who is allowed to vote.

Subjects

Subjects

HeinOnline editors have created 16 subjects to help users target their research. Every title in this collection has been analyzed by HeinOnline editors and assigned one or more subjects based on its subject matter.

Explore these subjects and their scope below:

Absentee Voting

Voters who cannot go to the polls on election day to cast their vote can mail in their ballot ahead of time through absentee voting. Explore this subject with:

Ballots

Ballot design, access, and types play crucial but invisible roles in election. Learn about these forms with:

Campaign Finance

How candidates raise and spend money on their political campaigns is highly regulated, greatly scrutinized, and often controversial. Explore these big dollar issues with:

Election Administration

Learn about the nuts and bolts of conducting an election, from staffing polling places to procuring voting machines, with titles such as:

Election Integrity

Ensuring that elections are conducted in a way that makes them accessible to all who are eligible to participate and that their results are honored is paramount. Explore how elections are kept free and fair and the tactics used to suppress election integrity with:

Election Outcomes

This subject allows users to examine the outcomes of specific election contests, both domestic and around the world. 

Election Reform

Election reform refers to ideas and proposals to the electoral process, from declaring Election Day a federal holiday to abandoning the electoral college. Explore these big ideas with:

Electoral College

The electoral college is the process by which the United States elects the president. Learn about this process with: 

Federal Election Commission

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is a regulatory agency responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws in federal elections. Learn about this agency's work with:

Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is artificially manipulating the boundaries of legislative districts to unfairly favor one political party or class. Explore this pernicious issue with:

Legislative Redistricting

Unlike gerrymandering, which is done with dishonest intent, legislative redistricting is the process by which legislative districts' boundaries are redefined as the result of population changes. Redistricting usually happens every ten years based on census results.

Political Campaigns

We are all familiar with campaign ads, campaign signs on lawns, and remember the aspirations of past candidates. Explore the inner machinations of running for office with:

Suffrage

Suffrage is the right to vote. Historically, women, people of color, and men who did not own land have been denied the vote. Today, most countries still restrict the right to vote by age and citizenship, but additional restrictions vary worldwide. Learn about this struggle through:

Voter Identification

For the last ten years, voter identification laws have been passed with increasing frequency, requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls. Explore this contentious issue with:

Voter Registration

In most countries, including the United States, eligible voters are required to register with their local electoral roll. This registration will record a person's name, address, a copy of their signature, and their political party affiliation (if applicable).

Voting Rights

Voting rights in the United States are enshrined in the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution and solidified by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Recent rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court have changed several of the Voting Rights Act's enforcement provisions. Explore the fundamental—but precarious—right to participate in our democracy with: