New book compiled by USC scholars examines election reform in American politics

Rethinking the Vote book cover

When USC professors Ann Crigler and Ed McCaffery began compiling a book on the politics and prospects of American election reform, they used the 2000 presidential race as a starting point.

Little did they know that three years later, California’s controversial recall election would offer several similarities. The statewide race may prove that the role of the vote — and the debate that goes with it — is not going away.

The dozens of essays included in Rethinking the Vote: The Politics and Prospects of American Election Reform (Oxford University Press, 2003) are attempts to learn from the past and offer possible solutions for the future. Some 22 scholars — including USC law professors Erwin Chemerinsky and Susan Estrich, political scientist Jeb Barnes, and McCaffery and Crigler— weighed in on the pitfalls of and problems with America’s voting system.

The contributors offer various viewpoints on the drama of Bush v. Gore and the American electoral system in general. They also discuss what may be learned from voting in America and elsewhere.

“Opinions range from those who want a truly participatory democracy, in which all votes count, to those who believe in a more minimalist approach, looking for rough justice in voting and voting systems,” said McCaffery, Maurice Jones Jr. Professor of Law at USC, who edited the book with Crigler, a professor of political science in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and director of USC’s Unruh Institute of Politics, and Marion R. Just, a professor at Wellesley College.

Some of the contributors found a racial and ethnic bias in the pattern of voting machines and vote-counting errors in California’s elections in 2000. Systematic technical errors and biases made a difference in the count, effectively disenfranchising groups of voters. Another chapter suggests that bias in voting results can occur simply because of sheer number of candidates who are listed on the ballot.

Professor Estrich issued cautionary comments about the prospects for any meaningful electoral reform that does not look at the role of money in politics.

“How can we make democracy in general — and its central act, voting, in particular — meaningful and participatory in a world of old boys flush with ever-new money?” Estrich wrote. “I know that it will have something to do with following the money and power.”