Campaign and Election Reform - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Campaign and Election Reform write by Glenn H. Utter. This book was released on 2008-06-10. Campaign and Election Reform available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This handbook provides a sweeping overview of U.S. campaign and election reform efforts, past and present, from the introduction of the secret ballot to touch-screen voting. Emphasizing the major electoral reforms since 2000, this second edition of Campaign and Election Reform investigates the development of the American electoral system from colonial times to the present. It chronicles efforts to expand suffrage, reform campaign financing, and prevent vote fraud, and traces the development of election technology from the paper ballot to the lever voting machine, from the punch-card ballot to the optical-scan and touch-screen systems. The book also explores alternative voting systems, such as preference voting and proportional representation, and compares the U.S. electoral process with the voting systems of selected European democracies. Campaign and Election Reform, Second Edition is essential reading for any citizen who wants to understand the U.S. electoral system, what's wrong with it, and how it might be fixed.
Election Reform: Basic References
Election Reform: Basic References - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Election Reform: Basic References write by United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. This book was released on 1973. Election Reform: Basic References available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Money, Power, and Elections
Money, Power, and Elections - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Money, Power, and Elections write by Rodney A. Smith. This book was released on 2014-04-07. Money, Power, and Elections available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Have campaign finance reform laws actually worked? Is money less influential in electing candidates today than it was thirty years ago when legislation was first enacted? Absolutely not, argues Rodney A. Smith in this passionately written, fact-filled, and provocative book. According to Smith, the laws have had exactly the opposite of their intended effect. They have increased the likelihood that incumbents in the House and Senate will be reelected, and they have greatly diminished the chances that candidates who are not wealthy will be elected. Smith's claims are supported by convincing data; he collected and analyzed information about all federal elections since 1920. These data show clearly that money matters now more than ever. Smith thinks that reform legislation has created a new inequality for candidates that, if left unchecked, threatens to destroy the American electoral process by obliterating the foundational principle of free speech. He argues that "money buys speech" and when candidates lack money to buy media time and space they are effectively silenced. Their inability to "speak freely" violates the most significant intentions of our nation's founders: that a sovereign citizenry elect its own leaders based on a free exchange of ideas. For Smith, campaign finance reform has unwittingly unbalanced the checks and balances created by the Framers of the Constitution.After presenting a detailed historical overview of how we have reached the present crisis, Smith proposes a simple solution: institute a process that completely discloses relevant information about campaign donors and recipients of donations. All disclosures would be available to the media, which would be able to investigate and report them fully. Only then, Smith believes, will the United States have the opportunity to be the democratic republic that its founders intended.
Federal Election Campaign Laws
Federal Election Campaign Laws - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Federal Election Campaign Laws write by United States. This book was released on 1997. Federal Election Campaign Laws available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Buying the Vote
Buying the Vote - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Buying the Vote write by Robert E. Mutch. This book was released on 2014. Buying the Vote available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "Campaign finance reform has always been motivated by a definition of democracy that does not count corporations as citizens and holds that self-government works best by reducing political inequality. In the early years of the twentieth century, Congress recognized the strength of these principles by prohibiting corporations from making campaign contributions, passing a disclosure law, and setting limits on campaign expenditures. These reforms were not controversial at the time, but conservative opposition to them appeared in the 1970s. That opposition was well represented in the Supreme Court, which has rolled back reform by granting First Amendment rights to corporations and declaring the goal of reducing political inequality to be unconstitutional. Buying the Vote analyzes the rise and decline of campaign finance reform by tracking changes in the way presidential campaigns have been funded since the late nineteenth century, and changes in the debate over how to reform fundraising practices. A close examination of major Supreme Court decisions shows how the Court has fashioned a new and profoundly inegalitarian redefinition of American democracy"--
