How to Rig an Election PDF Download

Author: Nic Cheeseman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300235216
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
An engrossing analysis of the pseudo-democratic methods employed by despots around the world to retain control Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States—touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.

Author: Allen Raymond
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416552227
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
An insider's account of the Republican election machine reveals the practices of libel, spin, and misrepresentation that have affected campaign outcomes throughout the past decade, and traces how the author landed in federal prison for fraud.

Author: Elaine Kamarck
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815735286
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
The 2020 presidential primaries are on the horizon and this third edition of Elaine Kamarck's Primary Politics will be there to help make sense of them. Updated to include the 2016 election, it will once again be the guide to understanding the modern nominating system that gave the American electorate a choice between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. In Primary Politics, political insider Elaine Kamarck explains how the presidential nomination process became the often baffling system we have today, including the “robot rule.” Her focus is the largely untold story of how presidential candidates since the early 1970s have sought to alter the rules in their favor and how their failures and successes have led to even more change. She describes how candidates have sought to manipulate the sequencing of primaries to their advantage and how Iowa and New Hampshire came to dominate the system. She analyzes the rules that are used to translate votes into delegates, paying special attention to the Democrats' twenty-year fight over proportional representation and some of its arcana. Drawing on meticulous research, interviews with key figures in both parties, and years of experience, this book explores one of the most important questions in American politics—how we narrow the list of presidential candidates every four years.

Author: Brian Klaas
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510735933
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
”[A] primer on the threat to democracy posed by—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—the current president of the United States.” —David Litt, New York Times bestselling author Donald Trump isn’t a despot. But he is increasingly acting like The Despot’s Apprentice, an understudy in authoritarian tactics that threaten to erode American democracy, including: Attacking the press Threatening rule of law by firing those who investigate his alleged wrongdoings Using nepotism to staff the White House and countless other techniques Donald Trump is borrowing tactics from the world’s dictators and despots. Trump’s fascination with the military, his obsession with his own cult of personality, and his deliberate campaign to blur the line between fact and falsehood are nothing new to the world of despots. But they are new to the United States. With each authoritarian tactic or tweet, Trump poses a unique threat to democratic government in the world’s most powerful democracy. At the same time, Trump’s apprenticeship has serious consequences beyond the United States. His bizarre adoration and idolization of despotic strongmen—from Russia’s Putin, to Turkey’s Erdogan, or to the Philippines’ Duterte—has transformed American foreign policy into a powerful cheerleader for some of the world’s worst regimes. In The Despot’s Apprentice, an ex-US campaign advisor who has sat with the world’s dictators explains Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian tactics and how Trump uniquely threatens American democracy... and how to save it from him.

Author: John Fund
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 159403270X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
John Fund explores the real divide the country faces with the looming election. Through wary thoughts on voting integrity, he shows how eletions can be decided by the votes of dead people, illegal felon voters, and absentee voters that simply don't exist. If nothing is done to address the growing cynicism about vote counting, rest assured that another close presidential election that descends into bitter partisan wrangling is just around the corner.

Author: David Shimer
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 059308196X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
The definitive history of the covert struggle between Russia and America to influence elections, why the threat to American democracy is greater than ever, and what we can do about it. This is "the first book to put the story of Russian interference into a broader context.... Extraordinary and gripping" (The New York Times Book Review). Russia's interference in the 2016 elections marked only the latest chapter of a hidden and revelatory history. In Rigged, David Shimer tells the sweeping story of covert electoral interference past and present. He exposes decades of secret operations—by the KGB, the CIA, and Vladimir Putin's Russia—to shape electoral outcomes, melding deep historical research with groundbreaking interviews with more than 130 key players, from leading officials in both the Trump and Obama administrations to CIA and NSA directors to a former KGB general. Throughout history and in 2016, both Russian and American operations achieved their greatest success by influencing the way voters think, rather than tampering with actual vote tallies. Understanding 2016 as one battle in a much longer war is essential to comprehending the critical threat currently posed to America's electoral sovereignty and how to defend against it. Illuminating how the lessons of the past can be used to protect our democracy in the future, Rigged is an essential book for readers of every political persuasion.

Author: Mollie Hemingway
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684512638
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER JUSTICE ON TRIAL Stunned by the turbulence of the 2020 election, millions of Americans are asking the forbidden question: what really happened? It was a devastating triple punch. Capping their four-year campaign to destroy the Trump presidency, the media portrayed a Democratic victory as necessary and inevitable. Big Tech, wielding unprecedented powers, vaporized dissent and erased damning reports about the Biden family's corruption. And Democratic operatives, exploiting a public health crisis, shamelessly manipulated the voting process itself. Silenced and subjected, the American people lost their faith in the system. RIGGED is the definitive account of the 2020 election. Based on Mollie Hemingway's exclusive interviews with campaign officials, reporters, Supreme Court justices, and President Trump himself, it exposes the fraud and cynicism behind the Democrats' historic power-grab. Rewriting history is a specialty of the radical left, now in control of America's political and cultural heights. But they will have to contend with the determination, insight, and eloquence of Mollie Hemingway. RIGGED is a reminder for weary patriots that truth is still the most powerful weapon. The stakes for our democracy have never been higher.

Author: Masaaki Higashijima
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047290275X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
Contrary to our stereotypical views, dictators often introduce elections in which they refrain from employing blatant electoral fraud. Why do electoral reforms happen in autocracies? Do these elections destabilize autocratic rule? The Dictator’s Dilemma at the Ballot Box argues that strong autocrats who can garner popular support become less dependent on coercive electioneering strategies. When autocrats fail to design elections properly, elections backfire in the form of coups, protests, and the opposition’s stunning election victories. The book’s theoretical implications are tested on a battery of cross-national analyses with newly collected data on autocratic elections and in-depth comparative case studies of the two Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Author: Nic Cheeseman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110841723X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
A radical new approach to understanding Africa's elections: explaining why politicians, bureaucrats and voters so frequently break electoral rules.

Author: Terri Jennings Peretti
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700630198
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
“I have no agenda,” US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts proclaimed at his Senate confirmation hearing: “My job is to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.” This declaration was in keeping with the avowed independence of the judiciary. It also, when viewed through the lens of Roberts’s election law decisions, appears to be false. With a scrupulous reading of judicial decisions and a careful assessment of partisan causes and consequences, Terri Jennings Peretti tells the story of the GOP’s largely successful campaign to enlist judicial aid for its self-interested election reform agenda. Partisan Supremacy explores four contemporary election law issues—voter identification, gerrymandering, campaign finance, and the preclearance regime of the Voting Rights Act—to uncover whether Republican politicians and Republican judges have collaborated to tilt America’s election rules in the GOP’s favor. Considering cases from Shelby County v. Holder, which enfeebled the Voting Rights Act, to Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, which upheld restrictive voter identification laws, to Citizens United and McCutcheon, which loosened campaign finance restrictions, Peretti lays bare the reality of “friendly” judicial review and partisan supremacy when it comes to election law. She nonetheless finds a mixed verdict in the redistricting area that reveals the limits of partisan control over judicial decisions. Peretti’s book helpfully places the current GOP’s voter suppression campaign in historical context by acknowledging similar efforts by the postCivil War Democratic Party. While the modern Democratic Party seeks electoral advantage by expanding voting by America’s minorities and youth, arguably hewing closer to democratic principles, neither party is immune to the powerful incentive to bend election rules in its favor. In view of the evidence that Partisan Supremacy brings to light, we are left with a critical and pressing question: Can democracy survive in the face of partisan collaboration across the branches of government on critical election issues?