Richard L. Hasen— The media often frame the voting wars as a stalemate between claims of voter fraud and voter suppression, but it is time to declare the battle over. The issue of organized voter fraud has now been put to the test in courts and in social science, and
Rogers M. Smith— Political figures on all sides decry “fake news” today. But politics has always been driven more by stories than facts. As different as they are in all other regards, both of America’s last two presidents won wildly improbable electoral successes while telling compelling stories about their country
George C. Edwards III— Can the intentions of the framers justify the violation of majority rule in the twenty-first century? Most of the motivations behind the creation of the electoral college are simply irrelevant today and can be easily dismissed. Legislative election is not an option, there is little danger
Alan I. Abramowitz— On the night of June 5, while most of the nation’s attention was focused on the results of California’s crucial “top two” primary, something unusual happened in the state of Alabama—and this time it didn’t involve Roy Moore. A Republican U.S. House incumbent named Martha Roby was
Benjamin Ginsberg— At a Washington dinner party, I happened to mention to the woman seated to my right, an executive of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency responsible for Americans’ health care, that a colleague and I had undertaken a survey of Washington officials to find out what the
Kati Suominen— In 2010, Gary Hufbauer and I published Globalization at Risk, our fierce defense of the open trading system that, many feared, would be reversed amid the economic angst of the 2008-09 Great Recession. Drawing on countless empirical studies, we showed that cross-border trade and investment have critically helped
Andreas Fahrmeir— U.S. citizenship has emerged as an issue several times during this year’s presidential campaign. There were debates on whether birthright citizenship is (and should be) protected by the constitution, and concerning the relationship between birth in the U.S. and descent from a U.S. citizen in determining whether individuals
Joel E. Dimsdale— Seventy years ago the international military tribunal at Nuremberg sentenced Julius Streicher to death for incitement of violence. It was one of the court’s most controversial judgments. Streicher was so loathsome that the Nazi party confined him to house arrest in 1940. Thus, it was hard to
Jonathan H. Ebel— “I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people.” —Donald J. Trump Every four years, presidential election cycles give Americans an opportunity to witness and to participate in sustained, often spectacular displays of civil religion. Campaign
Matthew Drennan— In the presidential campaign of 2012 there was hardly a mention of income inequality. This time is different. Even the Republican candidates say that it is a problem. The current candidates should address income inequality and not just mouth stale bromides. They should frame the issue around three