The American electoral system is in desperate need of reform. Amateurs and partisans run our elections. Legislators can essentially draw their own districts. Voters are deeply cynical, and with good reason, about the role money plays in the political process. Not surprisingly, the civic faith on which our democracy depends is in danger of eroding—perhaps permanently.

As a first step toward addressing these deficiencies, we asked eleven top democracy scholars to propose practical reforms that could be achieved without retooling the entire political system. Their ideas, contained in the working papers on this page, focus on three critical challenges facing our democracy:

The difficulties, in many cases, of simply casting a ballot
The need for adequate institutions to count the vote
The importance of nurturing the desire to participate

We envision this first set of proposals as part of a "one-two punch" of democratic reform. The targeted interventions proposed in these initial papers will be followed in 2007 by a more ambitious blueprint for broader democratic reform.

The working papers on this page were written by members of the Tobin Project's Institutions of Democracy Working Group. They were first presented at a meeting of the working group on Capitol Hill on June 22, 2006.

Several of the papers appeared in the September / October 2006 issue of the Boston Review.

All papers reflect the authors' own views.

Hard copies can be obtained by contacting the Tobin Project at:

One Mifflin Place - Suite 240
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 547-2600

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Working Papers

Mandated Voter Registration*
Luis R. Fraga, Associate Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Some Ideas for Increasing Voter Registration and Turnout*
Pam Karlan, Kenneth & Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Associate Dean for Research & Academics, Stanford Law School
Affirming the Right to Vote: Voter ID as a State Responsibility*
Alex Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling, Jr. Professor of History & Social Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Promoting Small Contributions*
Spencer Overton, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Voter Identification
Spencer Overton, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
A Race to the Top: Using a National Ranking System
Heather Gerken, Professor of Law, Yale Law School
A Future for Electronic Voting
Stephen Ansolabehere, Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Look Before You Leap: Use Randomized Testing to Measure the Consequences of Election Reform
Alan Gerber, Professor of Political Science, Yale University
Independent Congressional Redistricting & Federalized Voter List*
Samuel Issacharoff, Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Congress’ Power to Protect the Right to Vote as Such
Rick Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
A Citizens’ Assembly for Redistricting Decisions*
Archon Fung, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Removing the Gerrymandering Incentive
Nate Persily, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School

* This paper appeared in the September / October 2006 issue of the Boston Review and is posted on their web site