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 were presented at a meeting of our Institutions of Democracy Working Group in Washington, D.C. on June 22, 2006. Contained in the working papers on this page, they 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; and the importance of nurturing the desire to participate.

• 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.

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.

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

Copyright © 2010 by the Tobin Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
One Mifflin Place, Suite 240 || Cambridge, MA 02138 || +1.617.547.2600