ELECTORAL MAINTENANCE

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the right to vote is fundamental because it is preservative cf all rights, and yet in many cases legal protections for the right to vote fall short cfprotections for the other rights that voting is meant to preserve. Rede fining the right to vote cannot solve this problem alone. Election administration has at least as much consequence on the right to vote as any particular definition or legal theory. In Democracy's Bureaucracy, Michael Morse draws our attention to one cf the most important yet understudied issues cfelection administration: voter list maintenance. In addition to his descriptive account cf the novel way states have cooperated to perform list maintenance, Morse's analysis provides a window into three pathologies cf America's election administration more generally. First, the mechanics cf elections directly implicate the fundamental right to vote, raising questions cf how stringently these procedures should be evaluated by courts. Second, political interference in the administration cf elections can flip representative government on its head by insulating elected Officials from political accountability and making elections less secure. Finally, several challenges related to the administration cf elections are rooted in our electoral system that narrowly links geography and political representation. Relaxing this link may foster a more erfective, responsible, and inclusive system cf government.