HIST 295 Topics in History
The Contested Ballot in American History
Voting is fundamental to American democracy. It is, one nineteenth-century reformer argued, “like breathing.” And yet across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, vast numbers of Americans (at times even a majority of Americans) have been denied access to this fundamental democratic practice. This class investigates the curious and contested history of the ballot throughout American history. We will focus on both the formal rules governing the right to vote (state constitutions and federal interventions via constitutional amendment, SCOTUS decisions, and legislation) as well as the culture and practice of voting (ballot design, the timing of elections, and procedures around registration. The class will culminate with an examination of the state of voting in America in 2020 (the specifics to be determined as the election unfolds).