Cover image for Voting rights on trial a handbook with cases, laws, and documents
Voting rights on trial a handbook with cases, laws, and documents
Title:
Voting rights on trial a handbook with cases, laws, and documents
Author:
Zelden, Charles L., 1963-
ISBN:
9781576077955

9781280725401
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, c2002.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (xvii, 349 p.)
Series:
ABC-CLIO's on trial series

On trial.
Contents:
The strange career of voting in the United States -- The right to vote: a short history of a contested right -- Vote denial : democracy's dark secret -- The courts say no to expanded votings rights -- The fall of the all-white primary -- Victory and defeat in the lower federal courts -- The one person/one vote standard -- The Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the attack on race-based vote denial -- Vote dilution, redistricting, and the shift from at-large elections to single-member districts -- The conservative reaction to expanded voting rights -- Equal protection or equal effect? Voting rights in the Twenty-first Century -- The election the judges resolved : Bush v. Gore and the debate over the nationalization of voting in America -- Foundations : the Constitution of the United States -- The courts say no to expanded voting rights : Elk v. Wilkins and Minor v. Happersett -- The fall of the all-white primary : Smith v. Allwright -- Victory and defeat in the lower federal courts : Terry v. Adams -- The one person/one vote standard : Reynolds v. Sims -- Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- Vote dilution and the shift from at-large to single-member districts : Allen v. State Board of Elections -- The conservative reaction to expanding voting rights : dissents in Reynolds and Allen ; majority in Shaw -- The debate over nationalization of voting rights : Bush v. Gore.
Abstract:
Explores and documents the causes and effects of the long history of vote denial on American politics, culture, law, and society. An open franchise is vital to the survival of democracy. Yet for the past two centuries women, immigrants, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, poor people, and others have all faced organized efforts to obstruct their participation in the political process. The problem is still with us today. The debate over who can and cannot vote has been "on trial" since the American Revolution. Throughout U.S. history, the franchise has been awarded and denied on the basis of wealth, status, gender, ethnicity, and race. Featuring a unique mix of analysis and documentation, Voting Rights on Trial illuminates the long, slow, and convoluted path by which vote denial and dilution were first addressed, and then defeated, in the courts. Four narrative chapters survey voting rights from colonial times to the 2000 presidential election, focus on key court cases, and examine the current voting climate. The volume includes analyis of voting rights in the new century and their implications for future electoral contests.; The coverage concludes with selections of documents from cases discussed, relevant statutes and amendments, and other primary sources.
Holds: Copies: