The National Constitution Center and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, as part of their ongoing conversations about how to restore the guardrails of American democracy, present a conversation exploring recent proposals to protect the integrity of our election process. Join Charles C.W. Cooke, senior writer at National Review; Edward B. Foley, professor and director of the election law program at The Ohio State University; Michael T. Morley, professor at Florida State University Law; and Dawn Teele, SNF Agora Institute associate professor of political science, as they debate the merits of legislation pending in Congress and the states. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
This program is presented in partnership with the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University as part of the National Constitution Center’s Restoring the Guardrails of Democracy initiative, and made possible with support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) and Mike and Jackie Bezos.
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Charles C.W. Cooke is a senior writer for National Review and the former editor of National Review Online. He has also contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Post, The Atlantic, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of The Conservatarian Manifesto: Libertarians, Conservatives, and the Fight for the Right's Future and he is the co-host of the podcast, Mad Dogs and Englishmen.
Edward B. Foley holds the Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at The Ohio State University, where he also directs its Election Law Program. He is a contributing opinion columnist for the Washington Post, and for the 2020 election season, he served as an NBC News election law analyst. He is a member of the American Law Institute and the author of several books, the most recent of which is Presidential Elections and Majority Rule: The Rise, Demise, and Potential Restoration of the Jeffersonian Electoral College.
Michael T. Morley is the Sheila M. McDevitt Professor at Florida State University College of Law. He has testified before congressional committees, made presentations to election officials for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and participated in bipartisan blue-ribbon groups to develop election reforms. His work has been published in many of the nation’s top law reviews and the U.S. Supreme Court has cited his articles. Before joining FSU, he was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard and served in government prior to his experience in academia.
Dawn Teele is an associate professor of political science at the SNF Agora Institute. Her research has been published in a variety of journals, including the American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, and Politics & Society. She is editor of Field Experiments and Their Critics; co-editor of an edited volume that is currently in progress titled Good Reasons to Run: Women and Political Candidacy; and the author of Forging the Franchise: The Political Origins of the Women’s Vote.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- National Constitution Center, We the People podcast, "The Case for Reforming the Electoral Count Act"
- Edward B. Foley, Lawfare, "As Part of Electoral Count Act Reform, Liberals Should Learn to Love Bush v. Gore"
- Edward B.Foley, Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States
- Electoral Count Act of 1887
- Edward B. Foley, The Washington Post, "Why Congress should require its members to be elected by a majority of votes"
- Edward B. Foley, The Washington Post, "Can Alaska Save Democracy?"
- New America, “Implications for Top Four/Five Voting”
- Common Cause, "First Past the Post Voting: Our Elections Explained"
- Charles C.W. Cooke, National Review, "'Voting Rights' Has Become a Meaningless Political Slogan"
- Charles C.W. Cooke, National Review, "Stacy Abrams Must Have Read My Column"
- Dawn Teele, The Journal of Politics, "How the West Was Won: Competition, Mobilization, and Women’s Enfranchisement in the United States"
- Dawn Teele, Joshua Kala, and Frances Rosenbluth, American Political Science Review, "The Ties That Double Bind: Social Roles and Women's Underrepresentation in Politics"
- Patrick Whittle, AP News, “Maine’s ranked choice voting rules and procedures, explained”
- Oxford References, “Duverger’s Law”
- FairVote, “How Proportional Representation Elections Work”
- Michael T. Morley, Harvard Law & Policy Review, "The Framers’ Inadvertent Gift: The Electoral College and the Constitutional Infirmities of the National Popular Vote Compact"
- Presidential Transition Act of 1963
- Steve Herman, VOA News, “In America, Electoral Vote Perils Have a Long History”
- Merrill v. Milligan (2022)
- Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021)
- Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Jowie Chen and Jonathan Rodden, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, “Unintentional Gerrymandering: Political Geography and Electoral Bias in Legislatures”
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
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