Protecting Electoral Security and Voting Rights: The 2016 U.S elections in Comparative Perspective

Session Submission Type: Short Course / Workshop

Session Description

OFF-SITE SHORT COURSE - WESTIN ELIZABETHAN A
Ever since Bush v. Gore in 2000, the issues of voting integrity and voting rights have become of growing concern in American elections. During the last decade, state legislatures passed a series of legal regulations for electoral registration and balloting. The bitter partisan debate has often been framed as a trade-off between the rival values of electoral security (preventing fraud) and voting rights (suppressing participation). Thus, Republicans have sought to tighten integrity through more stringent voter identification requirements; Democrats have aimed to expand convenience registration and balloting facilities.

The 2016 elections saw heightened controversy, with Donald Trump’s repeated claims of massive voter fraud, the recount initiative in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania supported by Jill Stein and the Clinton campaign, and the FBI reported Russian attempts at hacking of voter registration sites at more than a dozen states, and two successful intrusions in Illinois and Arizona.

Beyond concern about polling day, broader issues of integrity are raised throughout the electoral cycle from partisan gerrymandering of district boundaries, exclusionary ballot access laws, the role of the Electoral College, aging election technology, rising levels of dark money in campaign finance, and the proliferation of ‘fake’ news on social media. Concern about electoral integrity has also spread elsewhere, including in Canada, the UK, and Australia. Populism has heightened mistrust of elections and liberal democracy. The consequences of declining trust can be deeply damaging for civic engagement, public confidence in elections, and democratic legitimacy (Norris 2014).

Social scientists have studied these issues through multiple techniques including legal and historical analysis, electoral forensics, public sector management, political behavior, expert surveys, content analysis, experimental methods, and policy analysis.

Sub Unit

• APSA Panels and All Meetings and Receptions

Chair

• Pippa Norris Harvard University and University of Sydney