Administering Elections : How American Elections Work

Administering Elections provides a digest of contemporary American election administration using a systems perspective. The authors provide insight into the interconnected nature of all components of elections administration, and sheds like on the potential consequences of reforms that fail to account for this.

Since the 2000 presidential election, attention to and scholarship about American elections have exploded alongside myriad proposals for election reform. This book provides a framework for a broader understanding of this critical dimension of American democracy by providing a digest and analysis of contemporary American election administration practices. Using a systems perspective, the authors provide policymakers, election officials, candidates, observers, and scholars with insight about the interconnected nature of election administration reforms as well as insight about the institutional and legal constraints that influence election administration systems. A central feature of their approach is attention to the ways in which unintended consequences of changes in one part of a system can ripple through other parts. The book pulls together the vast array of changes that have occurred in federal and state law and administrative practice since 2000 including the range of variation in state and local practices on many current election administration questions.