We the Voters

Many Americans today are frustrated, unsettled, or just plain perplexed about the rules governing our democracy and who gets make them. Concern about rigged systems, confusion about the Electoral College, and uncertainty about who's in charge of it all have shaken our faith in elections as a reliable way to peacefully transfer political power in a deeply fractured nation. In We the Voters, Lori A. Ringhand brings a fresh perspective to these issues. In straightforward and accessible language, she explains how certain questions – who "we the people" are, how they should be represented, and who gets to make the rules governing our elections – have always lurked just beneath the surface of our nation's most contentious fights about how our elections should work. When there are clear answers to these questions, this book explains them. But its primary purpose is to help readers understand why so many of these questions are genuinely difficult, and how decisions made by past generations both structure and empower our choices today. Using constitutional text, history, and landmark Supreme Court decisions, Ringhand shows how the Constitution often serves less as rigid rule book for our elections and more as a general framework, empowering each generation of Americans to engage for themselves the important questions underlying our electoral system by interrogating what is and isn't working for them. We the Voters is pragmatic, but also optimistic. In the end, the Constitution leaves the defense of our democracy up to us; it equips us with the tools we need to question, debate, and ultimately change how our system of self-government works. This book urges us to take up that call with vigor.