Democracy Reform and Voting Rights in the United States

Archived since: Mar, 2021

Description:

In 2020 the ongoing partisan struggle in the United States between advocates for voting rights and official proponents of voter suppression measures came to a head during a bitter presidential election campaign conducted amidst the substantial additional challenges to participatory democracy posed by the global pandemic. The election saw historic turnout, but also a sustained effort by the defeated incumbent to challenge the election’s legitimacy, spurring a violent insurrection on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to attempt to disrupt the U.S Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. As the Biden administration gets underway with narrow Democratic Party control of the House and Senate, while legislatures in multiple states are advancing new voter restrictions, structural democracy reform and voting rights will be at the heart of major legislative debates in 2021 and beyond. Columbia University Libraries has initiated a new thematic web archive collection devoted to documenting these historic debates and any ensuing legislation, both at the national and in selected local contexts, focusing on democracy reform and voting rights and subtopics including: campaign finance reform; electoral college reform (including the National Popular Vote interstate compact); the equal-time rule; gerrymandering; ranked-choice voting; universal voter registration; voter identification; voter suppression; DC Statehood; Puerto Rico Statehood; and Supreme Court expansion/reform.

Subject:   Government - National ,  Government - US States,  Politics & Elections,  Puerto Rico,  Washington (D.C.),  U.S. states,  Statehood (American politics),  Representative government and representation,  Suffrage,  Voting,  Democracy