Election Law as Ideology: Toward a New Historiography of Democracy as a Function of Law

When advocates push for legal reforms expanding voting rights or reining in the political influence of wealthy elites, they frequently allude to the need to "protect" democracy or push back against its "degradation." While these advocates often demand changes that would make the United States' electoral system more inclusive and egalitarian, this language implies that democracy exists outside of law. This rhetoric often overlooks the ways in which undemocratic principles are baked into the very system of laws that create democratic rights for Americans in the first place. Election law in the United States presents a paradox for proponents of democracy Law creates the legal tools necessary for exercising democratic rights and simultaneously limits those rights by excluding certain classes of people from democratic processes and protecting social and economic hierarchies in the arena of electoral politics. On the one hand, all democratic rights are necessarily creatures of law. Election law creates the very rules and mechanisms that enable people to play a role in the selection of their political representatives.