POL 2307 - Electoral Rules and Reform

Prerequisite: POL 1000
FDR: Social Sciences (SS2)
Credits: 3

Free and fair elections are the lodestar of ideal democracy. In the U.S., we utilize winner-take-all rules to elect our national leaders, a process known to reinforce and exacerbate two-party, adversarial politics. But is our on- the-ground reality sufficiently democratic? In this course, students will approach the American system critically as ‘democratic engineers’ in search of design flaws in our electoral laws. In doing so, we will engage deep, weighty questions of just institutional design: What representational objectives should an electoral process achieve? Who should have the right to vote and how easy should it be to cast a ballot? Under what circumstances and through what channels should losers contest results? Can a democratic election justifiably ban anti-system parties? Topics include: electoral system variation, Duverger’s hypotheses, structures of intra-party competition (primaries and caucuses) and of inter-party competition (the Electoral College), campaign finance, malapportionment and gerrymandering, suffrage rights, voter access, and electoral security.