"Partisanship and the Dark Side of Election Law"

Bob Bauer's latest post begins: "Rick Hasen has attempted to describe for a foreign audience, Australians, the dilapidated, ever-on-the-brink-of collapse electoral process in the United States. He says that things are generally a mess, spread among jurisdictions that are free to run elections as they wish, are overseen by partisans and are only irregularly held to professional standards. Such a foul state of affairs predictably produces a Bush v. Gore or a spoiled Congressional election like Florida's 13th. It is just good fortune that elections are only rarely decided by a hair, when dysfunction is consequential and hard to ignore, and we can get by more generally, with limited discomfort, because of the apparently infinite tolerance of the voter."

Posted by Rick Hasen at January 23, 2008 07:02 AM