A substantial literature studies franchise extension, focusing primarily on class-based – rather than race-based – voting restrictions. This paper constructs and analyzes a novel dataset that codes the presence of race-based restrictions on voting in 131 jurisdictions over 1730-2000...

We investigate whether term limits can help historically underrepresented groups, such as women, gain faster access to positions of political power. We exploit evidence from Italian local elections where, in a context of rapidly increasing women's presence in politics, mayoral term limits were...

The fragmentation of the party system has confronted the German mixed-member proportional electoral system with a trilemma. It can only ensure two out of three goals: proportionality, guaranteed representation of district winners, and a fixed and predictable size of the Bundestag. This paper...

The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) paved the road to Black empowerment. How did southern whites respond? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration rates by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we...

The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) paved the road to Black empowerment. How did southern whites respond? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration rates by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we...

Der Beitrag beschreibt, wie Wahlrechtsnovellierungen als Teil einer gelebten Demokratie durch stets neu gewonnene Erfahrungswerte einem regelmäßigen Wandel unterliegen. Im Fokus stehen hierbei aus Erfahrungen der Bundestagswahl 2021 gewonnene Anpassungsvorschläge, die das aktuell geltende...

Aging societies face a fundamental challenge: How to represent future oriented policies in the politics of today? Voting age reforms and, more generally, policies that encourage the participation of the youth in politics are discussed as one solution. In this report, we study whether voting age...

This paper investigates the patterns of Minority representation and voter registration in U.S. municipal governments. For the period 1981-2020, we report substantial levels of strategic underrepresentation of African American, Asian, and Latino voters in U.S. local politics. Disproportionality...

This paper investigates the effects of campaign finance rules on electoral outcomes. In French departmental and municipal elections, candidates competing in districts above 9,000 inhabitants face spending limits and are eligible for public reimbursement if they obtain more than five percent of...

We develop a theory of democratization that integrates both electoral calculations and economic incentives to explain the institutional choices of political actors. Left-leaning (liberal) politicians, who, given their location in the policy space, are more likely to receive the support of newly...

We study the health effects of the spread of democratic institutions and the extension of voting rights in 15 European countries since the middle of the nineteenth century. We employ both cross country and cohort variation in heights and employ a new instrument for democracy and the extension of...

Previous literature has found that extending the suffrage to both females and poorer voters increases the supply of public goods. This paper investigates whether the difference in voting between men and women can be explained by differences in income alone, or if there exist gender specific...

In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court struck down a core provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that enabled federal electoral oversight in select jurisdictions. We study whether this decision disproportionately impacted ballot access for Black and Hispanic registered voters. We...

Der Beitrag beschreibt, wie Wahlrechtsnovellierungen als Teil einer gelebten Demokratie durch stets neu gewonnene Erfahrungswerte einem regelmäßigen Wandel unterliegen. Im Fokus stehen hierbei aus Erfahrungen der Bundestagswahl 2021 gewonnene Anpassungsvorschläge, die das aktuell geltende...

Aging societies face a fundamental challenge: How to represent future oriented policies in the politics of today? Voting age reforms and, more generally, policies that encourage the participation of the youth in politics are discussed as one solution. In this report, we study whether voting age...

This paper investigates the relationship between the franchise and law enforcement practices using evidence from the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. We find that, following the VRA, black arrest rates fell in counties that were both covered by the legislation and had a large number of newly...

We investigate the effect of term limits on female political representation. Using data from Philippine municipalities where strict term limits have been in place since 1987, we show that term limits led to a large increase in the number of women running and winning in mayoral elections....

Wenn das Volk entscheidet - wer ist dann das Volk? -- Volksentscheide zwischen demokratischem Anspruch und totalitärer Gefährdung -- Schlussfolgerungen -- Referenden als Vertrauensbeweis für die jeweilige Regierung.

In recent years, voter ID laws and convenience voting have generated heated partisan debates. To shed light on these policy issues, we survey the recent evidence on the institutional determinants and effects of voter turnout and broaden the perspective beyond the most debated rules. We begin by...

Der Beitrag beschreibt die rechtlichen Grundlagen der Wahl zum 20. Deutschen Bundestag und zeigt relevante Rechtsänderungen gegenüber der Bundestagswahl 2017 auf. Insbesondere erläutert er Änderungen des Bundeswahlgesetzes, der Bundeswahlordnung sowie die rechtlichen Maßnahmen, die aufgrund...

Der Beitrag beschreibt die wichtigsten Meilensteine einer Bundestagswahl und vermittelt einen praxisbezogenen Einblick in die organisatorische Vorbereitung und Durchführung der Bundestagswahl 2021 unter Pandemiebedingungen. Im Fokus stehen das Wahlrecht und das Wahlverfahren, die Aufgaben des...

Der Beitrag beschreibt die rechtlichen Grundlagen der Wahl zum 20. Deutschen Bundestag und zeigt relevante Rechtsänderungen gegenüber der Bundestagswahl 2017 auf. Insbesondere erläutert er Änderungen des Bundeswahlgesetzes, der Bundeswahlordnung sowie die rechtlichen Maßnahmen, die aufgrund...

Der Beitrag beschreibt die wichtigsten Meilensteine einer Bundestagswahl und vermittelt einen praxisbezogenen Einblick in die organisatorische Vorbereitung und Durchführung der Bundestagswahl 2021 unter Pandemiebedingungen. Im Fokus stehen das Wahlrecht und das Wahlverfahren, die Aufgaben des...

Prozent-Hürden sollen eine Zersplitterung in Parlamenten verhindern und Parteien nur in Fraktionsstärke hineinlassen. Dazu werden bislang die Stimmen für Parteien unterhalb der Hürde gar nicht berücksichtigt. Diese Ungleichheit der Wahl und Benachteiligung von kleinen Parteien ließe sich...

In this article we propose a simple method for detecting problematic partisan gerrymanders. We begin by defining a new standard for determining a party's equitable seat share given its vote share. We provide intuitive, theoretical, and empirical justifications for our definition, and we compare...

This Essay argues that the Reconstruction Acts, which readmitted Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, and Mississippi back into the union, are a source of constitutional meaning that bears on the right to vote under the Reconstruction...

Political tenure (experience) is a double-edged sward: expediting government performance, while increasing political power with potentially harmful (corruption) ramifications. Within a voters-politician interaction framework, we unravel these two effects of political tenure on voters' welfare...

Is corruption systematically related to electoral rules? A number of studies have tried to uncover economic and social determinants of corruption but, as far as we know, nobody has yet empirically investigated how electoral systems ináuence corruption. We try to address this lacuna in the...

This paper tests the hypothesis that the extension of the voting franchise was caused by the threat of revolution, as suggested by Acemoglu and Robinson [Quarterly Journal of Economics 115, 1167-1199, 2000]. We approximate the threat of revolution in a given country by revolutionary events...

Is corruption systematically related to electoral rules? A number of studies have tried to uncover economic and social determinants of corruption but, as far as we know, nobody has yet empirically investigated how electoral systems influence corruption. We try to address this lacuna in the...

In Presidential Control of Elections, Professor Lisa Marshall Manheim masterfully canvasses how “a president can affect the rules of elections that purport to hold him accountable” and thereby “undermine the democratic will and delegitimize the executive branch.” Bringing together...

This year marks the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, which provided American women a constitutional guarantee to the franchise. We assemble data from a variety of sources to document and explore trends in women’s political participation, issue preferences, and partisanship since that...