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CAMPAIGNS, ELECTIONS, AND
THE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY
WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW®
CAMPAIGNS,
ELECTIONS, AND
THE THREAT
TO DEMOCRACY
WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW®
2nd Edition
DENNIS W. JOHNSON
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Johnson, Dennis W., author.
Title: Campaigns, elections, and the threat to democracy :
what everyone needs to know / Dennis W. Johnson.
Other titles: Campaigns and elections
Description: Second edition. | New York : Oxford University Press, 2022. |
Series: What everyone needs to know |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022023703 (print) | LCCN 2022023704 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197641972 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780197641989 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780197642009 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Political campaigns—United States. | Campaign
management—United States. | Politics, Practical—United States. |
Elections—United States. | Democracy—United States.
Classification: LCC JK2281 .J622 2022 (print) | LCC JK2281 (ebook) |
DDC 323.70973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023703
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022023704
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Paperback printed by Lakeside Book Company, United States of America
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
For Pat, with all my love
CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION: WHY YOU NEED TO

KNOW ABOUT CAMPAIGNS, ELECTIONS, AND THE THREAT
TO DEMOCRACY XVII
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XXV
1 Voting and Participation 1
How does the United States conduct elections? 1

What’s the historical background on the right to vote in America? 3
Why was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 important? What’s the
importance of the 2013 Shelby County and the 2021 Brnovich
decisions? 5
Who votes more, men or women? Why is there a gap between the
voting participation of women and men? What about Gen Xers and
Millennials? 8
What are the rates of voting for African Americans, Hispanic
Americans, and Asian Americans? And what was the racial makeup
of those who voted in recent elections? 10
Before 2020, had there been efforts to diminish voting participation? 10
Do convicted felons ever get back the right to vote? 12
Why do so few voters participate in elections, especially in state and
local contests? 13
Compared to other democracies, how does the United States rank in
terms of voting participation? 14
viii Contents
What would happen if every American adult were required to vote,

as in some other countries? 15
After the 2000 presidential election exposed problems in local voting
systems, Congress passed legislation to make sweeping reforms in
the administration of voting procedures. Has that made any difference? 16
How vulnerable are state and local voting procedures to hacking and
cyber threats? 17
How accurate are voting records? 18
Can a person be kicked off the voting rolls for failing to vote in
previous elections? 19
Before the 2020 election, how did mail-in ballots, absentee-ballot
voting systems, and early voting work out? 20
In recent years, there have been charges of widespread voter fraud.
Are those charges believable? 21
2 Carving Out Legislative Districts 24
How do some states gain and some states lose congressional seats
following reapportionment? 24
Why has redistricting been such a problem? 26
What are the requirements for creating legislative districts? 28
Who makes the decision about redistricting legislative districts? 28
What is partisan “gerrymandering”? How far can it go before it is
unconstitutional? 29
Has there been any attempt to take redistricting and gerrymandering
out of the hands of partisan legislators? 32
Why do all states get two senators no matter how big—or
small—they are? 33
3 Political Parties and Elections 35
When did the two major political parties play an important role in
elections and campaigns? 35
The South was once very Democratic but now is largely Republican.
What happened? 36
Contents ix
What’s the difference between Republicans and Democrats? 38

Shouldn’t the Republican Party really be called the “Trump Party”? 40
Why are we so polarized today? 41
How much disagreement is there within the political parties? 43
Who has more followers, Democrats, Republicans, or independents? 44
How did we get the labels “red states” and “blue states”? 45
What are the Democrats’ “Blue Wall” and the Republicans’
“Red Wall”? 45
What are the states moving from one party to another? 48
Wasn’t the Tea Party a separate political party? 48
Do other political parties get involved in presidential elections? 49
Have the political parties surrendered their role in campaigning to
wealthy donors and super PACs? 50
What’s happened to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party? 51
4 Statewide, Local, and Congressional Elections 53
How many state and local elections are there? 53

What are the rules and regulations controlling campaign financing at
the state and local levels? 54
How do local candidates get out the message and let voters know
about themselves? 55
Are more women running for political office than in previous years? 55
Does it cost a lot for local candidates to run for office? 57
Do states have public financing laws and, if so, what offices do they
apply to? 60
How can an average citizen help a candidate or a cause at the
local level? 61
Electing judges has become more and more like electing regular
political candidates. Is there any danger to this? 61
Congressional incumbents hardly ever lose when they are up for
re-election. Why is that so? 63
x Contents
5 Presidential Elections 65
Can anyone run for president, or is that just an old American myth? 65
Why do presidential elections last so long? 66
Why do we have so many primaries and caucuses? 67
What’s the difference between a caucus and a primary? 68
Why does Iowa go first? 70
How do you become a party delegate? What’s a “superdelegate”? 71
What is the Electoral College and how does it work? 72
Why did the Founding Fathers decide that we needed the Electoral
College to determine presidential elections? 75
Who are the electors, and how do you get to be one? 76
What if “faithless” electors refuse to vote for the winner of the
popular ballot? 77
What if the president-elect dies before the Electoral College meets? 78
What happens if no candidate receives 270 votes when the Electoral
College tallies the votes? 79
What’s the “winner-take-all” system? 81
What is a “battleground” state? 82
What states have had the most consistent record in voting on the
winning side of presidential elections? 82
How close have recent presidential contests been? 83
What about third-party candidates, with no chance of winning,
acting as spoilers? 83
How much money is spent in presidential elections? Do the
candidates (and their allies) who spend the most money always win? 85
What kinds of reforms have been suggested for our lengthy primary
and caucus season? 86
Why don’t we just have a nationwide election where whoever gets
the most votes wins, and not worry about the Electoral College vote? 88
What is the idea of a national popular-vote compact? 89
Contents xi
6 The 2020 Presidential Election 91
How did Joe Biden win the crowded Democratic primaries? 91

How many people voted, and how many, thanks to Covid-19, voted
early or used mail-in ballots? 92
How close was the election? Didn’t Biden win by over 7 million votes? 93
Weren’t many states heavily for Trump and others heavily for Biden? 94
But what about the razor-thin results in some of the states? 96
How about the battleground states? How did Trump and Biden fare? 96
Were third-party candidates a factor in 2020? Ever heard
of Jo Jorgenson? 97
How was Biden able to win Georgia, which almost always goes
Republican? 98
What about the recounts and audits in Georgia, Arizona, and
other places? 99
How did voter turnout in 2020 compare to recent presidential
elections? 100
If every eligible adult had voted, how many more people would
that be? 101
How secure was the presidential election from Russian interference
and cyberattacks? 101
7 The Big Lie and Its Aftermath 104
What was the “Big Lie”? 104

Did the “stop the steal” movement occur before Trump came along? 105
What groups were pushing the “Stop the Steal” and Big Lie efforts? 107
Why did so many Republicans believe the Big Lie? 108
Why did so many Republican members of Congress go along with
the Big Lie? 109
To what lengths did Trump go to challenge and refute the election
results? 111
Did Vice President Mike Pence have the authority to overturn the
election? 113
xii Contents
How did state election officials react? 114

How successful were Trump and his supporters in the courts? 115
Didn’t Trump’s lawyers and allies get into trouble with the courts
and the legal profession? 117
What about the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems? 118
In the end, has there been any proof of “massive voter fraud” and a
“stolen election” as repeatedly charged by Trump and his supporters? 119
Have we ever seen a president or major candidate promote this kind
of falsehood? 120
In really tight past presidential elections, how did the losing
candidate react? 121
8 Money, Mega-Donors, and Wide-Open Spending 123
What federal rules and regulations controlled campaign financing

before 1971? 123
What did the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 do? 124
Can individual candidates spend as much as they want on their own
campaigns? 125
What’s the difference between “hard” money and “soft” money? 126
What are political action committees (PACs)? 127
What did the McCain-Feingold Act do to fix campaign-finance
problems? 129
What do organizations do to get around campaign funding
restrictions? 131
How did the Supreme Court undo campaign-finance reform in
Citizens United and subsequent cases? 132
What are 501(c) groups, and how do they impact campaign spending? 135
How do super PACs differ from ordinary PACs? 137
What is “dark money” and how important has it been in recent
elections? 138
Who are the top individual mega-donors, how much have they
spent, and where do they stand politically? 139
What about regular people? Do they give money to political
candidates? 141
Contents xiii
How well has the FEC performed its job of enforcing campaign-
finance rules? 143
Didn’t the IRS get in trouble for trying to oversee these organizations? 144
Where does all that campaign money go? 144
What are the most expensive campaigns at the federal (but not
presidential) level? 145
Do candidates who amass the most money always win? 147
What about self-funded candidates? 147
Where are we now with federal campaign laws? 149
9 Inner Workings of Modern Campaigns 151
Why can’t candidates just run on their own, without the need for
consultants and handlers? 151
What are the key elements of any successful political campaign? 152
What do you mean by political consultants, and what kinds of
services do they provide? 154
What do media consultants provide? 154
What do pollsters do for a campaign? 155
How much information do political campaigns have on the average
voter? 156
Who have been some of the most important political consultants
over the years, and where are they now? 157
In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton’s race to lose. How did her consultants
and strategists get it wrong, and did Trump show that consultants
aren’t all that necessary or smart in getting a candidate elected? 158
What about Trump versus Biden in 2020? How did the campaign
strategies fare? 161
10 Direct Democracy—Ballot Campaigns 163
When and why did ballot campaigns become a part of American

politics? 163
What’s the difference between initiatives, referendums, and recalls? 164
xiv Contents
What states have direct democracy through ballot campaigns? What

about at the local level? 167
How do political consultants get involved in ballot issues? 169
What was California’s Proposition 13? 171
How many people are affected by ballot initiatives? 172
How much money is spent on ballot campaigns, and who spends
the money? 172
How successful are ballot issues? What is “choice fatigue”? 173
What are the downsides of ballot initiatives and direct democracy? 174
Is there a federal recall mechanism? Can voters recall a member of
Congress, a cabinet member, or the president? 174
What about a national referendum? Is it allowed in the Constitution?
What might the ramifications of a nationwide ballot initiative be? 176
11 How Campaigns Have Changed 178
Federal candidates now say, “I’m [name] and I approve this

message.” When did that become a part of campaigning, and why? 179
How has the digital revolution changed campaigning? 179
Is regular television dead, or is there still room for national and local
television news coverage in our digital age? 181
There is more polling done today than ever before. Is it worthwhile,
and is it more accurate than past polling? 183
Has early voting changed the way campaigns are run? Has early
voting been good for voters and for democracy? 185
How have outside voices expanded their impact on campaigns? 186
In sum, how have campaigns been transformed since the twentieth
century in the first two decades of the twenty-first century? 187
12 Threats to Democracy 189
What’s happened to our faith in democracy? 190

What is the global impact of the January 6 insurrection? 190
What has happened to trust in government and institutions? 191
Contents xv
Has any other president refused to participate in the inauguration of

his successor? 192
Is voter suppression real? 193
Who was paying for these efforts to restrict voting? 196
Why can’t we just have one federal set of laws to protect voting
rights? 197
Why are Republican lawmakers so intent on making voting more
difficult? 199
Which is worse: international interference in our elections or
domestic attempts to undermine them? 200
Why don’t more citizens participate in voting? Is registration
the barrier? 202
What about voter apathy, especially among young voters? 203
Why not hold general elections on the weekend or make Election
Day a national holiday? 204
How confident should we be about our decentralized election system? 204
How can we combat “fake news” and social media lies? 205
Do plutocrats control our elections? 207
Many consider the current campaign-financing system to be a
mess. Is there any way to reform it? 208
How can citizens find out which groups gave money to political
candidates? For example, who received money from tobacco
companies, pro-choice organizations, unions, or the National Rifle
Association? 209
NOTES 213
FURTHER READING 239
INDEX 241
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION: WHY
YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CAMPAIGNS,
ELECTIONS, AND THE THREAT
TO DEMOCRACY
So much has changed in American elections since the first

edition of this book was published just three years ago. Even
the title has changed, to reflect not only our concern about
campaigns and elections but also the threats to democracy
that have recently surfaced. In this edition, there are two new
chapters on the extraordinary 2020 presidential election be-
tween incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden.
Under normal circumstances, this book would not focus on just
one presidential election, but the events surrounding the 2020
election were so unique, so contentious, and in the end such
a threat to democratic norms and standards that this election
deserves special treatment in this volume. In chapters 6 and
7 we will look at the extraordinary campaign events, the im-
pact of the pandemic, the shift to mail-in voting, the attempts
by President Trump to raise substantial doubt about the elec-
tion before it even occurred, and, most consequentially, the Big
Lie—the attempt by Trump and his allies to subvert the vote of
the people and upset the Electoral College vote.
xviii Preface
The final section, chapter 12 on the threats to democracy,

is greatly expanded and updated. It focuses on the growing
distrust in American institutions and the flurry of laws passed
by Republican-dominated state legislatures to restrict access
to voting and to trim the powers of state election officials. We
look at the Democratic responses to these attempts at voter
suppression and the struggle in Congress to protect voting
rights and the integrity of the voting process.
American democracy is indeed under threat and we
all need clear, authoritative, unbiased answers about
campaigns, elections, and the integrity of our democratic
systems and institutions. This updated and thoroughly re-
vised edition will help us sift through the noise and false
narratives of those trying to undermine democratic values
and institutions.
The right of all citizens to vote and participate in elections

is a bedrock principle of American democracy. It has been a
hard-won right, overcoming prejudice, stubborn resistance,
and blatant discrimination grounded in state law and practice.
In our textbook versions, citizens are given the opportunity
to choose their representatives and to vote on issues without
fear of intimidation, knowing that the elections will be fairly
conducted, and the decision of the voters will be abided by.
Citizens also are assured that elections will be held on a fre-
quent and regular basis, usually every two or four years. Our
concept of democracy also assumes that citizens will be active
in public affairs—not just voting, but also learning about is-
sues, supporting candidates for office, even donating money
and working on campaigns.
But now, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, our
campaign and election systems are not working the way the
textbooks taught us. We have seen profound changes in how
campaigns are conducted, how voters get their information,
who gives money to campaigns, how the highest court has
interpreted the relationship between money and free speech,
Preface xix
how campaign consultants have used their influence, how a

president and his followers have denigrated the electoral pro-
cess and have pushed a Big Lie about the 2020 election results,
and how outside forces have tried to impact—and sometimes
have succeeded in impacting—elections.
Before we move on, let’s define two key words: elections
and campaigns. Through an election, citizens have the chance
to choose from among candidates for public office who will,
if elected, vote on policy issues. Usually, elections are held
on a fixed day, very often in early November for a general
election. Sometimes there are special elections (often to fill a
seat vacated by a death or resignation), primaries (to deter-
mine which of several candidates will represent a political
party), and, occasionally, runoff elections (when the leading
primary candidates have not reached a certain percentage of
voters during the first round). In over half the states, an elec-
tion can also include ballot issues, where there is no candi-
date, only policy issues at stake (for example, whether to have
a lottery or permit marijuana for recreational use). Elections
are conducted and monitored by state and local officials,
candidates are chosen to fill government jobs, and policy is-
sues are decided.
A campaign is the active side of an election: announcing a
candidacy, raising and debating issues, scheduling meet-and-
greet dinners and rallies, raising campaign funds, identifying
potential voters, communicating through social media and tel-
evision, and getting voters out to the polling stations. Much
of what we’ll discuss in this book deals with the changing dy-
namics and mechanisms of campaigning.
But over recent years, unfortunately, we’ve seen some dis-
turbing trends.
• Thanks to federal court decisions, the federal campaign-

finance laws have been almost entirely blown out of the
water. We used to require transparency; now millions of
campaign dollars can be hidden. We used to have limits
xx Preface
on the amount of money that can be donated or spent;

that’s almost all been taken away.
• The result is that a handful of mega-donors, those willing
to give $25 million or $50 million of their own money
(often hidden from public view) to a campaign, can have
a major impact on statewide and other races.
• Campaigns are no longer contests between one candidate
and another. Organized interests (many of them hidden be-
hind innocent-sounding names) have flooded campaigns
with their pitches, ads, and organizational muscle.
• In the 2016 presidential election, more adults sat at home
than voted for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
In many big-city mayoral elections, little more than 15
percent or 20 percent of the voters cast ballots. While the
2018 and 2020 elections saw big increases in voter par-
ticipation, the United States still lags far behind most
democracies in citizen involvement.
• Many voters simply don’t know what media to trust an-
ymore. Fake news found on social media sites, much of it
coming from other countries, confuses voters and distorts
reality. A president barking “fake news,” pushing false
information about the elections, and disparaging the
mainstream press certainly doesn’t help.
• Mistrust of government and its institutions is at an all-
time high, and partisanship and the ideological divide
are as corrosive as they have ever been. That mistrust
has been fueled by the 2020 Big Lie, former president
Trump’s refusal to accept the reality of his defeat, and his
efforts to punish those Republicans who defy him.
This book will try to sort out what is real, what is confusing,
and what everyone should know about campaigns and
elections. It poses 157 questions and answers that are based
on federal law and court decisions, the findings of scholars
and campaign practitioners, and an analysis of historical
events.
Preface xxi
The book is divided into twelve chapters, with questions

and answers focused on a common theme. Chapter 1 concerns
voting and participation. We’ll look at how our elections
work; how our participation rates compare with other coun-
tries; the long, tortured history of gaining the right to vote for
women and minorities; voting fraud; and how we protect our
electoral process. In c hapter 2, the focus is on the creation of
legislative districts. We’ll look at how state legislatures create
districts, the ongoing battle over gerrymandering and creating
districts favorable to one party or the other, and how states
lose or gain congressional districts following every ten-year
census. Chapter 3 is devoted to the role of political parties and
elections. How have the Democratic and Republican parties
changed over the years? Why don’t we have other parties pop-
ping up to challenge them? How many people consider them-
selves independents, and how do they vote during elections?
Is the Republican Party basically the Trump Party? We’ll also
ask whether political parties have surrendered their role in
campaigning to wealthy donors and super PACs.
In chapter 4, we’ll look at statewide, local, and congressional
elections. We start with a simple question: how many local and
state government offices require election by voters? We’ll also
look at how local candidates communicate with voters when
television is too expensive. Historically, women have not run
for office in the same numbers as men; has this changed in
the era of Donald Trump? In chapter 5, we look at presiden-
tial elections. Several questions surround our cumbersome
and antiquated Electoral College system: Why do we have this
system in the first place? How and when did it break down? Is
it a fair system? Who wants to change it and how could it be
changed? We’ll also look at questions about our lengthy pri-
mary system: How did we get to the point of having all these
primaries, and aren’t there ways to shorten the process? Why
don’t we have a straight-up-and-down nationwide vote where
whoever gets the most votes wins?
xxii Preface
Chapter 6 is new to this edition, and we explore in detail the

2020 presidential election. President Trump lost by 7 million
votes but, thanks to our antiquated Electoral College system,
came within an eyelash of winning. We’ll look at the im-
pact of Covid, the massive use of mail-in balloting, and the
surprising turnout of voters on both sides. In chapter 7, we
will look at the “Big Lie,” the repeated attempts by President
Trump to deny the legitimacy of the contest, even before any
votes were counted. And we’ll go into the “Stop the Steal” ef-
fort, showing who was behind it, who aided and abetted the
effort, and how courageous state and local officials—many
of them Republican—blocked the falsehoods. We now know
that Trump’s own advisers knew that the so-called steal was
nothing but a sham. We’ll look at those elected officials who,
either by their aggressive actions or more usually by their si-
lence, were complicit.
In chapter 8, we examine the impact of money in campaigns,
with the influence of mega donors and wide-open spending.
So much has changed in the past few years. What’s the dif-
ference between “hard” money, “soft” money, and “dark”
money? How have Supreme Court decisions profoundly
changed the way we regulate campaign financing? We’ll look
at the agencies responsible for overseeing federal campaign fi-
nancing, especially the Federal Election Commission and the
Internal Revenue Service. We’ll identify some of the wealthiest
donors and see what their impact may have been, but we’ll
also look at what average citizens can contribute.
In chapter 9, we look at campaign consultants. What are the
roles of campaign managers, pollsters and media specialists,
big-data consultants, get-out-the-vote specialists, and a legion
of other campaign operatives? We’ll ponder the question, if
Hillary Clinton had an all-star team of consultants, why was
she beaten by Trump’s team, which could at best be described
as “second tier”? How do campaigns and political consultants
run a political campaign during a Covid pandemic? Chapter 10
is devoted to direct democracy and ballot campaigns. How do
Preface xxiii
ballot campaigns work, and what kinds of issues typically ap-

pear on ballots? We’ll also look at why ballot issues are a gold
mine for political consultants, especially in California. We’ll
look at the attempt to recall the California governor in 2021.
And we’ll explore the dicey issue of whether there should be a
system for holding nationwide ballot elections.
In chapter 11, we’ll look at how campaigns have changed
since the beginning of the digital age. We’ll look at the revo-
lution in microtargeting and big data, explore the impact of
social media, and look at the role of that tried-and-true com-
munications tool, television. Finally, c hapter 12 wraps up our
exploration of campaigns and elections by asking whether our
system and our actions pose a threat to democracy. We’ll look
at the attempts by Republican- controlled state legislatures
to restrict voting access and at Democratic-dominated state
legislatures attempting to broaden the right to vote. We’ll look
at Russian hacking, “fake news,” the vulnerability of our elec-
tion system to cyber warfare, home-grown terrorism, and other
issues. We’ll probe the question: which is worse—Russian and
other foreign actors attempting to mess with our elections or
homegrown attempts to subvert the will of the people and
cast doubts on our electoral system? We’ll also tackle the ques-
tion: what can citizens do to better understand how money is
spent and how they can better participate in these most impor-
tant components of citizenship?
In all, we’ll gain a much better understanding of how
elections and campaigns work, the strengths and weaknesses
of our democratic institutions, and how we can make our
system better.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many colleagues, friends, and associates helped me develop

this volume on campaigns and elections. As with several of
my previous works, I turned to my colleagues at the George
Washington University and its Graduate School of Political
Management. I especially thank Michael Cornfield for his
insights and analysis. I also turned to several of our adjunct
faculty and friends; specialists in the art of electioneering and
politics, especially Tom Edmonds and Michael Malbin; along
with the anonymous reviewers of this project.
I also recruited friends and colleagues who have no real
background or specialized knowledge of campaigns and
elections. This book is written for them and people like them—
engaged and concerned citizens—and is designed to answer
their questions and give them a better understanding of the
inner workings of campaigns and the importance of elections.
These friends have acted in one way or another as my in-
formal focus group for the first edition of this book, giving
me advice on the questions presented here and posing some
questions that I had not thought of earlier. Special thanks to
Jeanine Draut, Sunny Early, Lollie Goodyear, Erik Johnson,
Phyllis Kester, Christina Dykstra Mead, David Mead, Pat
Miller, Danny Poole, Mike Saunders, Trish Saunders, Helen
Shreves, Susan Wright, and Haskell Thomson and the wise
folks (especially Elliott Jemison, Mary McDermott, and John
xxvi Acknowledgments
Woodford) at the Chocolate Sparrow Coffee Club in Orleans,

Massachusetts.
My special thanks to senior editor Angela Chnapko, who
encouraged me to write a second edition of this book, and
who, along with senior project editor Alexcee Bechthold, made
the whole process run smoothly. In addition I would like to
thank the fine production team headed by project managers
Lavanyanithya Kathirvel and Ponneelan Moorthy, production
editor Katherine Schminky, and the copyediting of Danielle
Michaely.
Most of all, thanks to my wife, Pat, who read every word
of this text, both in its first and second editions; gave me some
very helpful suggestions; and, more than anything, was my
best cheerleader and support through all the burdens and joys
of writing this volume.
1
VOTING AND PARTICIPATION
Compared to other democracies, the United States has a medi-

ocre record of voter participation. Our interest usually peaks
during presidential elections. In 2020, there were a record
number of voters, reaching 67 percent of eligible citizens, but
that was far above the usual rate of voting. For local elections
and ballot measures, voter participation is often much lower.
The United States has had a long history of denying citizens
the right to vote, and today there is pressure to clamp down
against alleged voter fraud. Elections are administered at the
state and local levels, but despite federal assistance, many of
the state systems are fragile and vulnerable to electronic fraud
and political chicanery.
How does the United States conduct elections?

The most familiar method of conducting elections is called the
single-winner system—the candidate with the most votes wins.
There are two versions of the single-winner system. The first is
the plurality-voting method, which means that no matter what
percentage of the vote the top vote-getter receives, that candi-
date is declared the winner. This is how our federal elections
(for the House of Representatives and the Senate) work, as
well as many gubernatorial and other statewide contests. The
winning candidate doesn’t need a majority of votes (50 percent
2 Campaigns, Elections, Threat to Democracy
plus one vote), just the most votes. The second version is the
majority-voting method, in which the winning candidate must
receive a majority of the votes. When there are many candidates
and none receives a majority, states and other jurisdictions
with majority systems will hold a runoff between the top two
candidates.
Our presidential election system, of course, is also a single-
winner system, but the outcome depends not on popular
vote but on having the majority of electors from the Electoral
College. We’ll see in much more detail how the Electoral
College works in chapter 5 and examine in depth the problems
found in the 2020 election in chapters 6 and 7.
We also have a multiple-winner system. This usually occurs
at the local level in cities and counties, and the chief feature
is that several candidates are declared winners. For example,
there might be four available seats in a local at-large elec-
tion and seven candidates. The top four vote-getters will be
declared the winners.
Another system, called ranked-choice voting (RCV), is used
in a number of municipalities, including San Francisco and
Minneapolis, and it is employed statewide in Maine. In total,
RCV has now been adopted in fifteen states, from Alaska to
Florida. Instead of just choosing one candidate, voters rank
their preferences. When there are multiple candidates, if the
top vote-getter doesn’t receive a majority, then the candidate
with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated. At that
point, the voters’ second choices will be considered. Ultimately,
a winner will emerge with a majority of the votes. In 2018, a
congressman from Maine lost his bid for re-election under a
newly installed RCV system. He had the highest number of
votes, but not a majority. When the votes were calculated using
the RCV method, his opponent gained more than 50 percent of
the vote and was declared the winner. The effect is very similar
to a runoff election, and has the benefit of ensuring that an out-
lier candidate who gains perhaps only 15 percent to 20 percent
of the vote doesn’t come in first in a multicandidate race.
Voting and Participation 3
The biggest recent test of RCV was in the New York City
mayoral primary, held in June 2021, with eight candidates
vying for the Democratic nomination. In this very public con-
test, RCV may have been confusing to voters, but even more
so to city election officials, who struggled to come up with the
eventual winner.
What’s the historical background on the right to vote

in America?
We pride ourselves that nearly every American adult is eli-
gible to vote. Right now, the only people who cannot vote are
convicted felons, those with mental incapacities, and residents
who are not citizens. But as we will see, many Americans fail
to register, are somehow blocked or intimidated, or simply do
not take advantage of the right to vote, particularly in state and
local elections.
The history of extending the right to vote in this country
has been long and tortuous. As historian Alexander Keyssar
reminds us, “At its birth, the United States was not a dem-
ocratic nation. The very word ‘democracy’ had pejorative
overtones, summoning up images of disorder, government
by the unfit, even mob rule.”1 And for many years to come,
very few people had the right to vote. Women, nearly all free
African Americans, slaves, Native Americans, and White adult
males who couldn’t meet the property requirements were
excluded from the vote. Later, Asian Americans and Hispanic
Americans were routinely denied the right to vote.
The Civil War brought an end to slavery and also estab-
lished citizenship for former slaves, through the Thirteenth
Amendment. African American men obtained the right to vote
under the Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870. In the South, this
was carried out under military-enforced Reconstruction. By
1890, some 147,000 African American men were on the voting
rolls in Mississippi. Altogether, 1,500 African Americans were
appointed or elected to office in the South from 1870 to 1890.
Ironically, several northern states still prohibited Blacks from

voting. Then came the resurgence of southern White dom-
ination and the purge of Black voting rights. Starting with
Mississippi in 1890 and spreading throughout the South,
there was a massive effort to remove Blacks from the voting
rolls—through intimidation, so-called grandfather clauses, lit-
eracy tests, poll taxes, and other devices. It worked: before the
purge, 67 percent of Mississippi Blacks were registered to vote;
by 1892, just 4 percent remained on the rolls. The US Congress
did nothing to stop the wholesale elimination of voting
rights—so much for the protections of the Constitution. North
Carolina governor Charles Aycock, whose remains rest in the
US Capitol crypt, said in 1903 that he was “proud” of his state
for solving the “Negro problem”: “We have taken him out of
politics and have thereby secured good government under any
party and laid foundations for the future development of both
races. . . . Let the Negro learn once [and] for all that there is
unending separation of the races, that the two peoples may
develop side by side to the fullest but that they cannot inter-
mingle.”2 One estimate found that in the 1940s, only 5 percent
of all African Americans living in the South were voting. Full
voting protections for African Americans—men and women—
did not come until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Women battled for decades to secure the right to vote.
Starting in 1848, at the Women’s Rights Convention held
in Seneca Falls, New York, women activists began to fight
throughout the states and in Congress to obtain the right to
vote. Carrie Chapman Catt, leader of the principal woman’s
suffrage organization, bitterly recounted those battles: 56 ref-
erendum campaigns, 480 campaigns to urge state legislatures
to submit suffrage amendments to voters, 47 campaigns to in-
clude woman suffrage in state constitutions, 277 fights to have
state parties include woman suffrage in their platforms, 30 plat-
form fights during presidential elections, and 19 campaigns in
each of the Congresses, spanning thirty-eight years.3 Finally, in
1920, women gained the right to vote through the Nineteenth
Amendment. There was concern, mostly among opponents,

that women would form a bloc, even a Women’s Party, to vote
their interests, but as women settled into voting, they soon oc-
cupied the whole spectrum of ideology and partisan ties.
The right to vote was expanded twice more. The Twenty-
Third Amendment (1961) extended the right to vote for
president and vice president to the citizens of the District of
Columbia. Eighteen-year-olds were granted the right to vote
by the Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971). The overwhelming
sentiment was that if we are asking eighteen-year-olds to fight
in the Vietnam War, then we should allow them to vote as well.
The saying was “old enough to fight, old enough to vote.”
Why was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 important? What’s

the importance of the 2013 Shelby County and the 2021
Brnovich decisions?
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, together with the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, was one of the most important pieces of legis-
lation passed during the twentieth century. The Deep South
had continued to block or intimidate African American voters,
keeping them from exercising one of democracy’s most impor-
tant rights. After civil rights protestors were beaten and jailed
in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, an exasperated President Lyndon
Johnson ordered his attorney general: “I want you to write
me the goddamnest toughest voting rights act that you can
devise.”4
The Voting Rights Act suspended for five years all sorts of
voting registration requirements that had impeded minority
voting in six southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia) and several counties
in other states (North Carolina, Arizona, and Hawaii). To
back up the law, federal examiners (mostly southern federal
bureaucrats) were sent to those states to monitor the elections.
Any new voting requirements or restrictions these states
proposed had to be approved by the Justice Department, in a
process called preclearance. Once the voting restrictions were

removed, African American registration increased by a million
during the first four years, and the number of southern Black
elected officials doubled.5 Still, White citizens and groups tried
in many ways to circumvent the requirements of the Voting
Rights Act and dilute or minimize Black voting strength.
The Voting Rights Act was renewed several times. The
last time was in 2006, when its protections were extended
until 2033. But in June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled, in
Shelby County v. Holder,6 that Congress had exceeded its au-
thority in 2006 when it reauthorized the section of the Voting
Rights Act that required the preclearance of state election
laws. In Shelby County, the court said, basically, that the strin-
gent requirements in the original law had been the right thing
to do back in 1965, but that “things have changed dramat-
ically” since then. Congress should have updated the law,
said the conservative majority on the court. Chief Justice John
Roberts wrote the opinion. Congress had failed to make any
updates, and thus the preclearance provisions—the real heart
of the law’s enforcement—were ruled unconstitutional.7 The
Supreme Court essentially defanged the Voting Rights Act.
Within a few hours of the Shelby County decision, Texas at-
torney general Greg Abbott announced that the state’s voter-
identification restrictions would be implemented immediately.
Those stringent restrictions had previously been blocked by
a federal court. Soon, similar action was taken in Alabama,
North Carolina, and Virginia and attempted in Florida.8
Then came the 2020 presidential election, the Big Lie, and
in the aftermath Republican- controlled state legislatures,
eighteen in all, passed legislation to restrict voting rights and
decrease voter access. Arizona was one of those states. Its leg-
islature passed two restrictive laws: one law required election
officials to throw out ballots that were cast in the wrong pre-
cinct, and the second law barred most people and groups from
collecting absentee ballots and dropping them off at polling
places. When the inevitable lawsuit appeared, a lower federal
court determined that there was clear evidence that these two
laws made it harder for persons of color to vote. But when
the case reached the Supreme Court, in Brnovich v. Democratic
National Committee,9 the majority of justices ruled otherwise.
The 6-to-3 conservative majority determined that the states
have a legitimate right to root out voting fraud and that the
Voting Rights Act, through Section 2, provided just limited
power to overturn state law or practice. Through Justice Samuel
Alito, the court reasoned that the Voting Rights Act could be
used to strike down measures only when they imposed sub-
stantial and disproportionate burdens on minority voters.
“Where a state provides multiple ways to vote, any burden
imposed on voters who choose of the available options cannot
be evaluated without also taking into account the other means
available,” wrote Alito. Thus, the Arizona laws, and presum-
ably many of the other restrictive laws winding their way
through state legislatures, could not be considered violations
of the now watered-down version of the Voting Rights Act.
This did not sit well with the three liberals on the court. In
her dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the ma-
jority had done great harm to the Voting Rights Act, stating
that the majority ruling was a devastating blow to the nation’s
ideals. “Whenever it can, the majority gives a cramped reading
to broad language. And then it uses that reading to uphold two
election laws from Arizona that discriminate against minority
voters. . . . What is tragic is that the court has damaged a statute
designed to bring about ‘the end of discrimination in voting.’ ”
President Joe Biden weighed in, stating that the court “has
now done severe damage” to the Voting Rights Act. “After all
we have been through to deliver the promise of this nation to
all Americans, we should be fully enforcing voting rights laws,
not weakening them.”10
In the final section of this book, c hapter 12, we’ll look fur-
ther at the efforts to dismantle the Voting Rights Act and the
counterattempts to expand and protect voting rights and
access.
Who votes more, men or women? Why is there a gap

between the voting participation of women and men? What
about Gen Xers and Millennials?
The Center for Women in American Politics at Rutgers
University has noted that since the 1964 presidential election,
women have outnumbered men when it comes to voting.11
Since then, women have consistently outperformed men in
terms of both numbers and percentage of voters. In the 2016
presidential election 63.3 percent of women (73.7 million)
voted, whereas 59.3 percent of men (63.8 million) voted. In
2020, women increased their participation rate to 68 percent,
while men increased to 65 percent.
Why do women vote at a higher rate than men? Political
scientists are not clear on any one reason, but several pop up.
Women are more likely to access and manage services such as
healthcare, elder care, and childcare, for which they may look
for government support. Women are also more likely to feel
the effects of poverty than men, and to see the federal govern-
ment as a source of assistance. Many women have risen up
in opposition to Donald Trump’s policies and his treatment of
women, despite his boast on the campaign trail that “nobody
has more respect for women than I do. Nobody.” The Supreme
Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh and the #MeToo move-
ment have only added fuel to the fire, giving many women a
greater impetus to become active in elections and politics.
Women voters have become more Democratic in re-
cent decades, thanks in part to the growing right- leaning
social policies of the Republican Party. Many lawmakers
in the Republican Party used to support the Equal Rights
Amendment, extended childcare services, and part- time
and flexible work for men and women, and it was not so
rigid in its opposition to abortion. That has all changed. The
Democratic Party is more often seen as the “women’s party,”
and the Republican Party as the “men’s party.” In 2016,
Hillary Clinton won the women’s vote by 12 points but lost
the men’s vote by 12 points—a total spread of 24 points, the

largest gender gap ever recorded in presidential elections. In
2012, without a woman on either party’s ticket, Barack Obama
won the women’s vote by 12 points and lost the men’s vote by
8 points.
White women typically favor Republicans, but women of
color, African Americans, and Hispanics have voted heavily
for the Democratic Party in recent elections. Women without
a college education voted heavily for Trump in 2016, whereas
women with a college education voted more for Democrats.12
And as we’ll see in c hapter 6, college-educated women heavily
supported Joe Biden in 2020, and the most loyal women were
African Americans, who gave him an 87 to 7 percent advan-
tage over Donald Trump.
Young voters may also play an important and growing role
in upcoming elections. The Pew Research Center reported that
in 2016, Generation Xers (those who were then between the ages
of thirty-six and fifty-one) and Millennials (between the ages of
eighteen and thirty-five) together accounted for more voters in
2016 than the Silent Generation (ages seventy-one and older)
and baby boomers (ages fifty-two to sixty-nine).13 As older
voters die, the Gen X and Millennial vote will become even
more important. Millennials typically vote less often than older
voters, but their participation rates are increasing. Furthermore,
in 2016, Millennials were the group that most strongly favored
Democrats over Republicans: 55 percent of Millennials were
Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, while 33 per-
cent were Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.
During the 2018 midterm elections, 31 percent of eighteen-to
twenty- nine- year-
olds voted, 10 points better participation
than in the 2014 midterm elections, but not as strong as their
participation in the 2016 presidential election, at 51 percent.
In 2020, Millennials came out in record numbers and voted
heavily for the Democratic Party. Again, the numbers will be
looked at in greater detail in chapter 6.
What are the rates of voting for African Americans, Hispanic

Americans, and Asian Americans? And what was the racial
makeup of those who voted in recent elections?
In a 2020 report, the Pew Research Center observed that “in
all fifty states, the share of non-Hispanic White eligible voters
declined between 2000 and 2018, with ten states experiencing
double-digit drops in the share of White eligible voters.”14 This
was especially true in the Southwest, with California, Nevada,
and Texas experiencing a significant share of the Hispanic
vote; this was true in Florida as well.
Here is the racial makeup of American voters during the
2020 and 2000 presidential elections:
• White, 72.0% in 2020; 80.7% in 2000

• African American, 11.0% in 2020; 11.5% in 2000
• Hispanic, 10.0% in 2020; 5.4% in 2000
• Asian, 3.0% in 2020; 1.8% in 200015
In short, the percentage of White voters is dropping, and

Hispanic American and Asian American participation is
growing. The US Census Bureau forecasts that Whites will
constitute 50 percent of the population in 2050, that Hispanics
will go from 13 percent (2000) to 24 percent (2050), that African
Americans will go from 13 percent to 15 percent, and that
Asians will go from 4 percent to 8 percent.16 The shrinking
percentage of White voters means trouble for the Republican
Party if it keeps going down its current path of appealing to
and relying heavily on White voters while losing minority
supporters.
Before 2020, had there been efforts to diminish voting

participation?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes. It is a long-standing demo-
cratic norm that people should be encouraged to participate
and that the greater the participation, the better it is for democ-
racy. But in reality, there have been repeated efforts to curtail
participation, and the burden falls heavily on minority citi-
zens. This is nothing new.
We have had a long and ugly history of racial discrim-
ination and deprivation of the fundamental democratic
value, the right to vote. The South, dominated by Democrats
during much of the post–Civil War period through the 1960s,
suppressed African American voting until the federal govern-
ment intervened by passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The
Civil Rights Act, passed the year before, and the Voting Rights
Act received key support from moderate Republicans, while
Southern Democrats fought vigorously against these federal
protections. President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have
said, “There goes the South,” meaning that White Southern
voters would abandon the Democratic Party in droves. He
was right. President Richard Nixon, a Republican, exploited
what he called the “Southern strategy,” wooing White voters
away from their traditional home in the Democratic Party,
capturing those who supported Alabama governor George
Wallace. Nixon courted White southerners with his racially
coded pleas for “law and order.” African Americans stayed
with the Democratic Party and became its main source of po-
litical power in the South.
Minorities are increasingly voting for the Democratic
Party; the Republican Party is increasingly seen as the
“White party.” (There is more on the political parties in
chapter 3.) Gerrymandering against minorities becomes easier
when “Democrat” replaces “African American.” The dilution of
minority voting is forbidden by the Voting Rights Act, but par-
tisan gerrymandering is not forbidden. As a Republican law-
maker in North Carolina boasted, “I think electing Republicans
is better than electing Democrats. So I drew this map to help
foster what I think is better for the country.”17 It would be in-
teresting to speculate how much gerrymandering would go on
if, say, in North Carolina, the allegiance of African Americans

was split evenly between Republicans and Democrats.
Do convicted felons ever get back the right to vote?

About 2.5 percent of all adults are currently disenfranchised
because they have been convicted of a felony, according to a
2016 study by the Sentencing Project, a criminal-justice research
and advocacy group.18 Researchers estimate that some 6.1 mil-
lion adults who are or were incarcerated have lost the right to
vote; four decades ago, in 1976, that number was 1.17 million.
Disenfranchisement policies are controlled by the individual
states, and they vary widely. Some states restore voting rights
after prison only (fourteen states); after prison and parole (four
states); after prison, parole, and probation (eighteen states); or
after prison, parole, probation, and postsentencing (twelve
states). In some places, the restoration is automatic; in other
places, it must be gained by petition. Just two states, Maine
and Vermont, have no restrictions on felony voting; even those
serving time in prison can vote. In four states, disenfranchise-
ment is permanent unless voting rights are granted by the
governor.
Disenfranchisement has fallen most heavily on African
Americans. In four states, more than one in five African
American adults have been disenfranchised: Florida
(21 percent), Kentucky (26 percent), Tennessee (21 percent),
and Virginia (22 percent).
There have been some attempts to restore voting rights
to former felons. In Virginia, Democratic governor Terry
McAuliffe signed an executive order to restore the voting
rights of convicted felons who had served their sentences, a
number estimated at 206,000. Republican lawmakers cried
foul and sued the governor. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled
that McAuliffe could restore voting rights only on a case-by-
case basis, not through a sweeping executive order affecting
all former felons. McAuliffe then proceeded to restore voting
rights, one by one, and by the end of his term of office, he had
restored voting rights to some 13,000 ex-felons. His successor,
Democrat Ralph Northam, continued the restoration process.
Through a November 2018 ballot measure, Florida voters
restored voting rights for some 1.5 million ex-felons, but in
March 2019 Florida Republicans in the legislature tried to limit
the number of ex-felons who could vote, claiming they needed
to pay back all court fees and fines. This legislation, signed by
Governor Ron DeSantis, put as many impediments as possible
in the path of felons seeking to gain full voting rights.
Why do so few voters participate in elections, especially in state

and local contests?
There are more than 500,000 local elected officials in the United
States, and elections are usually held every two or four years.
In many of these elections, however, very few citizens bother
to vote.
A recent study at Portland State University, in Oregon,
examined 23 million voting records in fifty cities to see who
votes and who doesn’t.19 Some of the results are astounding.
Voting turnout was less than 15 percent in ten of the thirty
largest cities, and the median age of those who voted was fifty-
seven. Older voters were fifteen times more likely to vote in
these mayoral elections than young people, ages eighteen to
thirty-four.
Here are the study’s results for the most recent mayoral
contests in several cities, showing the percentage of voting
participation and the median age of voters.
• Dallas, 6.1%; median age, 62

• Las Vegas, 9.4%; median age, 68
• El Paso, 11.6%; median age, 59
• Miami, 11.9%; median age, 68
• Los Angeles, 18.6%; median age, 59
• Denver, 22.6%; median age, 59
The one bright spot was the city of Portland, where nearly
60 percent of voters participated, and the median age was
forty-nine. What are the consequences of such disparities in
voting? As one reporter noted, “Elected leaders will represent
the interests of retirees, if they know what’s good for them. . . .
Mayors and Council members will think first to the needs of
constituents who turn out to the polls.”20
The questions still remain, why do so few people vote,
and why is the median age so high? Political scientists
have studied this issue for years and come to a number of
conclusions. For many people, voting isn’t worth the time
and effort it takes; elections are generally held on Tuesday, a
workday for most. For some, the fear of the Covid pandemic
and the need for social distancing were factors. Voter regis-
tration requirements may hold some back. Others don’t keep
up with local issues, choose not to or cannot vote in primary
elections, are just not interested in politics, or don’t trust gov-
ernment or elected officials. Perhaps they feel that the out-
come of an election is a foregone conclusion—why bother to
vote? Who, then, votes most often? The elderly, the better ed-
ucated, those who have a strong sense of partisanship or ide-
ology, and those who believe that government can be a force
for the good in society.
Compared to other democracies, how does the United States

rank in terms of voting participation?
American voting participation is quite low when compared
to other industrial democracies. In a 2017 study by the Pew
Research Center, the United States was ranked twenty-sixth in
voting participation during its last election. Just 55.7 percent
of American adults voted in the 2016 presidential election; but
in 2020, some 67 percent of voters participated.21 Here’s how
Americans compare with voters in several other countries in
recent elections:
1. Belgium, 87.2% of all adults voted

2. Sweden, 82.6%
3. Denmark, 80.3%
4. South Korea, 77.9%
5. Australia, 70.9%
...
14. United States, 67.0%
Interestingly, in the United States the percentage of partic-

ipation among adults who had registered to vote was much
higher (86.8 percent). So the key weakness in the United States
appears to be low registration rates. Many American adults
are not eligible to participate in elections simply because
they have not registered or were somehow hindered from
registering. A smaller percentage of American voters, often
between 35 percent and 40 percent, participate in midterm
elections. But in the 2018 midterm elections, voting participa-
tion reached a fifty-year high, with 47 percent of eligible voters
casting their ballots.
What would happen if every American adult were required

to vote, as in some other countries?
In some countries— such as Belgium, Brazil, Australia,
Argentina, Ecuador, and Peru— voting is required, and
penalties, usually fines, can be levied on those who fail to par-
ticipate. Some argue that voting is a duty of citizenship, like
paying taxes, showing up for jury duty, and enrolling your chil-
dren in school. But mandatory participation laws sometimes
meet voter resistance from people who simply don’t like the
government telling them what to do. Some will submit blank
or incomplete ballots, pay little attention to the candidates
and issues involved, and do the bare minimum of thinking
and preparation before casting their vote. On the other hand,
compulsory voting might force those who otherwise wouldn’t
vote to think about the candidates and issues and register

their preferences. One study in Australia found that after com-
pulsory voting was established, more young voters and mi-
nority voters took part, and representation in Parliament of the
Labour Party, the more progressive party, increased.22
What would mandatory voting be like in the United States?
Barack Obama in his last year of office thought it would be a
good idea, saying it would be “transformative” if everybody
voted: “The people who tend not to vote are young, they’re
lower income, they’re skewed more heavily towards immi-
grant groups and minority groups,” Obama said. “There’s a
reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls.”23
It would certainly be a tall order, would probably run into con-
stitutional problems, and would meet tough challenges from
those trying to suppress voting rather than expand and en-
courage it throughout the entire population. And it would
go against the grain for many Americans, who would rebel
against having a voting requirement imposed upon them.
After the 2000 presidential election exposed problems in local

voting systems, Congress passed legislation to make sweeping
reforms in the administration of voting procedures. Has that
made any difference?
In 2002, Congress passed, and President George W. Bush
signed into law, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The 2000
presidential contest put a spotlight on state and local election
activities, and revealed that there was no uniformity in how
states administered voting. We learned that in Florida, where
much of the attention was focused, counties had different
voting machines—some digital, some fully automated—and
that some counties relied on hand-prepared ballots. Ballot in-
tegrity became a major issue. Some counties said that yes, their
machines and methods might be old-fashioned (paper ballots,
for example), but they worked, and besides, it would cost too
much money to buy newer voting machines. In addition, there
was considerable blowback from the private voting-machine

vendors, who balked at providing additional security against
hacking attacks.
HAVA was designed to help states improve voting ad-
ministration and voting integrity. The Election Assistance
Commission was created as an independent agency of the
federal government, and by 2005, some $3.3 billion had been
disbursed to the states to help them purchase new voting
machines. HAVA also required that for federal elections all
new voters had to provide a driver’s license or the last four
digits of their Social Security numbers. HAVA helped improve
voting systems, but bigger problems became evident. As the
New York Times reported, in September 2018, the real problem
was that election security depended on unregulated private
voting-machine vendors: “The mad history of election security
in the United States is a history of how misguided politicians
and naive election officials allowed an unregulated industry
to seize control of America’s democratic infrastructure.”24 In
2018, Congress added $380 million in grants under the HAVA
Election Security Fund to help with cybersecurity training and
audits; still, there is little assurance that hacking and meddling
in the most basic act of democracy—citizen voting—has been
adequately addressed.25
How vulnerable are state and local voting procedures to hacking

and cyber threats?
As we learn more about the dangers and reality of Russia’s
(and perhaps others’) attempts to hack into voter computer
systems, state election commissions and state legislatures have
responded with a wide variety of efforts. A report by the US
Senate Intelligence Committee found that most state election
systems were outdated. It recommended three things: switch
to paper ballots or to electronic voting that leaves a paper
trail; check voting results with “risk-limiting audits” (which
count a sampling of ballots by hand and check them against
the machine results); and better train election personnel about

the risks of cybersecurity. One state, Colorado, seems to be
doing the best job of protecting its election system against
cyber threats, according to the Center for Democracy and
Technology, because it has incorporated the recommended
safeguards.26 But many states haven’t met the challenge be-
cause of bureaucratic (and legislative) inertia, not recognizing
the seriousness of the problem, or a lack of funds. Chapters 7
and 12 discuss in more detail the threats of Russian meddling
in American presidential and congressional races.
How accurate are voting records?

Alarm bells went off when reports were published that many
of the voting records in states were outdated: the names of
dead people had not been removed, files hadn’t been updated
after people had moved out of state or changed their addresses
locally, there were typos and misspelled names, and the like. In
early 2012, the Pew Center on the States reported that the voter
registration system throughout the states desperately needed
an upgrade.27 “These systems,” the Pew study reported,
“are plagued with errors and inefficiencies that waste tax-
payer dollars, undermine voter confidence, and fuel partisan
disputes over the integrity of our elections.” Pew investigators
found the names of 1.8 million deceased persons still on the
voting rolls, 2.75 million people who were registered to vote in
more than one state, 24 million (one in eight) registrations that
were invalid or significantly inaccurate, and at least 51 million
adults (one in four) who were not registered at all.
It’s clear that the states have their work cut out for them in
cleaning up their voting rolls. But this mess is not voter fraud;
rather, it is bureaucratic inefficiency and a waste of taxpayers’
funds, and it reflects the inability of states to manage large
data systems. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 set
the guidelines for purging voters from the voting rolls. States
redoubled efforts to purge those who had died, moved, or been
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had expected. He had set out unwillingly, and wished to return as
quickly as possible. Cicero said that he had looked on the letter of
recommendation that he had given him to Caesar as a bill of
exchange payable to bearer.[259] He thought he had only to present
himself in order to take the money, and return. It was not only
money he went to look for in Gaul; he expected to find there a post of
distinction and importance. He wished to approach Caesar and make
himself appreciated. Cicero writes to him: “You would much rather
be consulted than covered with gold.”[260] Now, Caesar was so busy
that he was difficult to approach, and he did not at first pay any great
attention to this learned lawyer who came to him from Rome. He
contented himself with offering him the title and emoluments of a
military tribune, without the duties, of course. Trebatius did not
think this a sufficient reward for the length of his journey and the
dangers of the country, and thought of returning. Cicero had much
trouble to prevent this rash conduct. I do not think there is any part
of his correspondence more amusing and more lively than the letters
he wrote to Trebatius to induce him to remain. Cicero is at his ease
with this obscure young man, for whom he had such a lively
affection. He dares to laugh freely, which he does not do with
everybody, and he laughs all the more readily as he knows Trebatius
was low-spirited, and he wishes to console him. It seems to me that
this trouble that he takes to cheer up an unhappy friend makes his
pleasantries almost touching, and that his good heart here lends one
more charm to his wit. He quizzes him good-naturedly in order to
make him laugh, and jokes about things that he knows the good
Trebatius does not mind being bantered on. For instance, one day he
asks him to send him all the details of the campaign: “For an account
of a battle,” he says, “I trust above all the most timorous;”[261]
probably because, having held themselves aloof from the fight, they
will have been better able to see the whole. Another time, after
having expressed some fear at seeing him exposed to so many
dangers, he adds: “Happily I know your prudence; you are much
bolder in presenting writs than in harassing the enemy, and I
remember that, although you are a good swimmer, you would not
cross over into Britain for fear of taking a bath in the ocean.”[262]
To soothe his impatience he threatens him with the wags. Was it
not to be feared that if he returned, Laberius would put him in one of
his farces? A frightened lawyer travelling in the train of an army, and
exercising his profession among the barbarians, would make a funny
figure in a comedy; but, to silence the wags he had only to make his
fortune. Let him return later, he would certainly return richer;
Balbus had said so. Now, Balbus was a banker; he did not speak in
the sense of the Stoics, who affirm that one is always rich enough
when one can enjoy the spectacle of the sky and the earth; he spoke
as a Roman and meant that he would return well furnished with
crown-pieces, more romano bene nummatum. Trebatius remained,
and he did well to do so. Caesar was not long in noticing him, and
was pleased with his friendship. He got accustomed to camp life, and
in time became a little less timid than he was on his arrival. It is
probable that he returned rich, as Balbus had predicted, for if they
did not find all the treasures they went to seek in Gaul, Caesar’s
liberality was an inexhaustible mine that enriched all his friends. At a
later period Trebatius passed through trying times, and yet preserved
the reputation of an honest man; this was an act of justice that all
parties did him, although they were not much in the habit of doing
justice. He had the rare good fortune to escape all the perils of the
civil wars, and was still living in the time of Horace, who addressed
one of his most agreeable satires to him. We see in it that he was then
an amiable and indulgent old man who readily laughed and amused
himself with the young. He talked to them, no doubt, about that
grand epoch of which he was one of the last survivors, of the Gallic
war in which he had taken part, of Caesar and his captains whom he
had known. By the privilege of his age he could speak of Lucretius to
Virgil, of Cicero to Livy, of Catullus to Propertius, and formed a sort
of link between the two most illustrious periods of Latin literature.
The other person whom Cicero sent to Caesar was his brother
Quintus. As he holds a large place in Cicero’s life, and played a rather
important part in the Gallic war, it will be proper, I think, to say a
few words about him. Although he listened to the same lectures and
learned from the same masters as his brother, he never had any taste
for eloquence, and always refused to speak in public. “One orator,”
he said, “is enough in a family, and even in a city.”[263] He was of a
hard and yet changeable disposition, and gave way to violent fits of
anger without reason. In spite of an appearance of great energy he
was soon discouraged, and although he always affected to be the
master, he was led by those about him. These faults, that Cicero
bewailed to himself although he tried to excuse them, prevented
Quintus succeeding in his public career, and troubled his private life.
He had been early married to Pomponia, the sister of Atticus. This
marriage that the two friends had hoped would draw closer their
connection very nearly broke it. The couple found that their
characters matched too well: both were hasty and passionate, and
they could never agree, and the unbounded ascendency that Statius,
a slave, had over his master’s mind completed the disunion of the
household. In connection with this, it would be easy to show, from
Cicero’s letters, what influence the slave often exercised in ancient
families; a much greater one than is commonly supposed. Now that
the servant is free, it would seem natural that he should take a more
important place in our houses than before. But the contrary has
happened; he has lost in influence what he has gained in dignity.
When he became independent his master ceased to have any
obligations towards him. They now live together bound by a
temporary contract, which, by imposing reciprocal obligations,
appears irksome to both sides. As this fragile bond may be broken at
any moment, and as these allies of one day may become indifferent
to each other or enemies on the next, there is no longer any ease or
confidence between them, and they pass all the time during which
chance brings them together in surrounding themselves with
defences, and in watching one another. It was quite otherwise in
antiquity when slavery was flourishing. Then, it was not for a short
time only, it was for a whole life-time that they were united;
accordingly, they set themselves to know each other, and to adapt
themselves one to the other. To gain the master’s favour was the
important thing for the future of the slave, and he took trouble to
gain it. As he had no position to defend, or dignity to preserve, he
gave himself up to him entirely. He flattered and served his worst
passions without scruple, and at last made himself necessary to him.
Once confirmed in this intimacy, by his constant subserviency, by
private and secret services which his master was not afraid to
demand, and which he never refused to give, he ruled the family, so
that, however strange it may appear at first sight, it is true to say that
the servant was never nearer being master than when he was a slave.
This is what happened to Statius. Through the knowledge that he had
of the defects of Quintus, he had insinuated himself so well into his
confidence that the whole family gave way to him. Pomponia alone
resisted, and the annoyance she suffered for this reason made her
still more insupportable. She constantly worried her husband with
unfriendly remarks; she refused to appear at the dinners that he gave
on the pretext that she was only a stranger at home, or if she
consented to be present, it was only to make the guests the witnesses
of the most unpleasant scenes. It was, no doubt, one day when she
was more peevish and cross-grained than usual that Quintus
composed these two epigrams, the only examples that remain of his
poetic talent.
“Trust your ship to the winds, but do not give up your soul to a
woman. There is less safety in a woman’s words than in the caprices
of the waves.”
“No woman is good; or if by chance you find a good woman, I
know not by what strange fate a bad thing has become good in a
moment.”
These two epigrams are not very gallant, but we must excuse them
in the unfortunate husband of the shrewish Pomponia.
The political career of Quintus was not brilliant any more than his
private life was happy. He owed the offices which he obtained more
to the illustrious name of his brother than to his own merit, and did
nothing to make himself worthy of them. After he had been aedile
and praetor, he was appointed governor of Asia. To be invested with
an unlimited authority was a severe test for a character like his.
Absolute power turned his head; his violence, which nothing now
restrained, knew no bounds; like an oriental despot he only talked of
burning and hanging. He wished above all to obtain the glory of
being a great lover of justice. Having had occasion to order two
parricides to be sewn up in a sack and thrown into the water in the
lower part of his province, he wished to give the same spectacle to
the other part on his visit to it, that there might be no jealousy
between them. He sought therefore to seize a certain Zeuxis, an
important person, who had been accused of killing his mother, and
who had been acquitted by the tribunals. On the arrival of the
governor, Zeuxis, who guessed his intentions, fled, and Quintus,
vexed at losing his parricide, wrote him most friendly letters to
induce him to return. Usually, however, he dissembled less and
spoke more openly. He sent word to one of his lieutenants to seize
and burn alive a certain Licinius and his son who had embezzled. He
wrote to a Roman knight named Catienus “that he hoped to have him
suffocated one day in the smoke, with the applause of the
province.”[264] It is true that when he was reproached with having
written these furious letters, he replied that they were simple jokes,
and that he had wished to laugh for a moment, but it was a strange
way of joking, and shows his barbarous nature. Quintus had none the
less an enlightened mind, he had read Plato and Xenophon, he spoke
Greek admirably well, he even wrote tragedies in his leisure hours.
He had all the appearance of a polished and civilized man, but it was
only the appearance. Even among the most well-bred Romans,
civilization was often only on the surface, and under their polished
exterior we often find the rough and savage soul of a pitiless race of
soldiers.
Quintus came back from his province with a rather bad reputation,
but, what is more surprising, he did not come back rich. Apparently
he had embezzled less than his colleagues, and was not able to bring
back enough money to restore his fortune, which was very much
embarrassed by his extravagance; for he liked to buy and to build,
like his brother; he had a taste for rare books, and probably also
could refuse nothing to his favourite slaves. The exile of Cicero
completed the confusion of his affairs, and at the time of his
brother’s return Quintus was quite ruined. This did not prevent him,
at the time of his greatest financial distress, rebuilding his house at
Rome, and buying a country house at Arpinum and another in the
suburbs, constructing in his villa at Arcae, baths, porticoes, fish-
ponds, and such a fine road that it was taken for a work of the state.
It is true that the poverty of a Roman of that time would make the
fortune of many of our nobles. However, a day came when Quintus
was altogether in the hands of his creditors, and when he could
borrow no more. Then it was that he bethought him of the last
resource of embarrassed debtors: he went to Caesar.
It was not, then, only the love of glory that attracted Quintus to
Gaul; he went there, like so many others, to get rich. Up to that time,
the results had not answered to men’s expectations, and they had not
found among people like the Belgae and Germani all the treasures
that they looked for; but they were not yet discouraged; rather than
give up their brilliant fancies, after each disappointment, they put
farther off that enchanted country where they thought they must find
riches. As at this moment they were going to attack Britain, it was in
Britain that they placed it. Every one expected to make a fortune
there, and Caesar himself, by what Suetonius says, hoped to bring
back many pearls.[265] These expectations were deceived once more;
in Britain were neither pearls nor gold mines. They had a great deal
of trouble to take a few slaves who were not of much value, for it was
no use thinking of making them men of letters and musicians. For all
wealth, these men only possessed heavy chariots, from which they
fought with courage. Accordingly Cicero wrote humorously to
Trebatius, who sent him news of this ill-luck of the army: “Since you
find there neither gold nor silver, my opinion is that you should carry
off one of those British chariots, and should come to us at Rome
without stopping.”[266] Quintus was very much of the same opinion.
Although he had been well received by Caesar, who had appointed
him his lieutenant, when he saw that wealth did not come as quickly
as he expected, he lost courage, and, like Trebatius, he had for a
moment the idea of returning; but Cicero, who did not joke this time,
prevented him.
He did him a very great service, for it was precisely during the
winter that followed the war in Britain that Quintus had the
opportunity of performing the heroic action that commended his
name to the respect of military men. Although he read Sophocles
with ardour and had written tragedies, he was at bottom only a
soldier. In the presence of the enemy, he became himself again, and
displayed an energy that had not been suspected in him. In the midst
of populations which were in revolt, in entrenchments hastily raised
in one night, and with a single legion only, he was able to defend the
camp Caesar had entrusted to him, and to make head against
innumerable enemies, who had just destroyed a Roman army. He
replied in firm language to their insolent boasts. Although he was ill,
he displayed incredible activity, and it was only after a sedition
among his soldiers that he could be induced to take care of himself. I
have no need to relate the details of this affair that Caesar has told so
well in his Commentaries, and which is one of the most glorious
incidents of the Gallic war. This grand feat of arms raises Quintus in
our esteem; it effaces the meannesses of his character, and helps him
to play with a little more credit the ungrateful and difficult part of
younger brother of a great man.
III.
Cicero had clearly foreseen that, although Caesar in writing his

Commentaries professed only to prepare materials for history, the
perfection of his work would prevent sensible men from attempting
to re-write it. Accordingly Plutarch and Dio have taken care not to re-
write it; they are contented to epitomize it, and now we only know
the Gallic war by the narrative of him who was the hero of it.
However perfect the narrative may be, or rather because of its very
perfection, we have much difficulty in contenting ourselves with it. It
is the characteristic of these great works, which, as we might think,
ought to exhaust public curiosity, on the contrary, to make it more
active. By interesting us in the facts which they relate, they excite in
us the desire to know them better, and one of the surest marks of
their success is that they do not suffice for the readers, and make
them wish to know more than they tell. This desire, for fresh details
on the most important events of history, it is which renders Cicero’s
letters to Trebatius and to his brother so valuable for us. Although
they are fewer in number and shorter than we could wish, they have
the merit of adding some information to that which Caesar gives on
his campaigns. As they are more familiar than a narrative composed
for the public, they introduce us farther into the private life of the
conqueror of Gaul, and they permit us to see him in his tent, at those
times of leisure and repose, of which he has not thought of speaking
to us himself. This is certainly an interesting spectacle, it is the true
complement of the Commentaries, and we cannot do better than
carefully collect the scattered details they contain, in order to become
well acquainted with Caesar and his surroundings.
I imagine that Caesar’s army did not resemble those old Roman
armies that are depicted to us in such grave and temperate guise,
always trembling under the rod of the lictors, and submissive at all
times to an inflexible discipline. It was, doubtless, sternly controlled
in time of danger, and never complained of this. No other army has
ever undergone greater fatigues and executed greater deeds; but
when the danger was over discipline relaxed. Caesar allowed his
soldiers rest, and sometimes diversion. He let them decorate
themselves with splendid arms, and even adorn themselves with
studied elegance. “What does it matter if they use perfumes?” he
said, “they will know very well how to fight.”[267] And in fact these
soldiers, whom the Pompeians called effeminate, are the same who,
though dying of hunger at Dyrrhachium, declared that they would
eat the bark of the trees rather than let Pompey escape. They were
recruited for the most part among those Cisalpine Gauls from whom
Roman civilization had not taken the good qualities of their race, an
amiable and brilliant people who loved war and carried it on gaily.
The chiefs very much resembled the common soldiers; they were
lively and ardent, full of resources in critical moments, and trusted
more to inspiration than to routine. It is to be remarked that no one
of them had gained his reputation in earlier wars. Caesar seems to
have wished that their military glory should come from him only. A
few, and among these Labienus, perhaps the greatest of them, were
his political friends, old conspirators like himself, who, after his
example, and without any more preparation, from popular agitators
had become excellent generals. Others, on the contrary, like Fabius
Maximus and Servius Galba, bore illustrious names; they were
partisans whom he secured in the aristocracy, or hostages that he
took from it. The greater number, Crassus, Plancus, Volcatius Tullus,
Decimus Brutus, and later Pollio, were young men whom he treated
with marked preference, and whom he readily trusted in perilous
enterprises. He liked the young by personal preference, and also by
policy: as they did not yet belong to any party, and had not had time
to attach themselves to the republic by serving it, he hoped they
would have less difficulty in accustoming themselves to the new
régime that he wished to establish.
These lieutenants, whose number varied, did not alone form the
ordinary retinue of a proconsul. We must remember to add that
crowd of young Romans, sons of illustrious houses, destined by their
birth for public office, who came to serve their apprenticeship in war
under him. They were called his tent-comrades, contubernales.
Soldiers like the rest, and exposing themselves on the day of battle,
they became after the fight the friends, the companions of the chief
whom they followed in all his expeditions, as the clients
accompanied their patron in the city. They were present at his
receptions, took part in all his recreations and diversions, sat at his
table, surrounded him when he sat on the judgment-seat; they
formed, in sum, what was called the cohort, we should almost say the
court, of the praetor (praetoria cohors). Scipio Africanus, it is said,
invented this means of adding splendour to the public display of the
supreme power in the eyes of the conquered nations, and after him
governors had taken great care to preserve all this pomp which
added to their prestige. These were not all; by the side of these
military men there was room for men of very various abilities and
positions. Able financiers, intelligent secretaries, and even learned
lawyers might be necessary for the administration of those vast
countries that a proconsul governed. Thus Trebatius himself, the
pacific Trebatius, was not out of place in the train of an army, and he
had opportunities of exercising his profession even among the Nervii
and the Belgae. If we add to these men, to whom their high offices
gave a certain importance, a crowd of inferior officers or subaltern
servants, such as lictors, ushers, scribes, interpreters, apparitors,
doctors, men-servants, and even soothsayers, we shall have some
idea of that truly royal retinue which a proconsul always carried
about with him.
Caesar’s train must have been even more magnificent than that of
others. The ten legions that he commanded, the extent of country
that he had to conquer and govern, explain the great number of
officers and persons of all sorts by whom he was surrounded.
Moreover, he naturally loved magnificence. He readily welcomed all
who came to see him, and always found some office to give them in
order to retain them. Even in those wild countries he took pleasure
in astonishing them by his reception. Suetonius relates that he took
with him everywhere marquetry or mosaic floors, and that he had
always two tables laid at which rich Romans who visited him and
provincials of distinction took their places.[268] His lieutenants
imitated him, and Pinarius wrote to Cicero that he was delighted
with the dinners his brother gave him.[269] Caesar did not care much
for these sumptuous repasts, and these rich dwellings, on his own
account. We know that he was temperate, that in case of need he
could sleep well in the open air, and eat rancid oil without blinking;
but he had a taste for display and luxury. Although the republic still
existed, he was almost a king; even in his camps in Britain and
Germany he had assiduous followers and courtiers. He could only be
approached with difficulty; Trebatius made the attempt, and we
know that it was a long time before he could reach him. No doubt
Caesar did not receive men with that stiff and solemn majesty that
repelled them in Pompey; but, however gracious he might wish to be,
there was always something in him that inspired respect, and it was
felt that that ease of manner that he affected with everybody
proceeded from a superiority which was sure of itself. This defender
of the democracy was none the less an aristocrat who never forgot his
birth, and willingly spoke of his ancestors. Had they not heard him,
at the commencement of his political life, at the very time when he
attacked with most vivacity the institutions of Sulla, and tried to get
back their ancient powers for the tribunes, had they not heard him
pronounce over his aunt a funeral oration full of genealogical
fictions, in which he complacently related that his family was
descended at once from the kings and the gods? But in this he only
followed the traditions of the Gracchi, his illustrious predecessors.
They also defended public interests with ardour, but they called to
mind the aristocracy from which they had sprung by the haughty
elegance of their manners. We know that they had a court of clients
at their rising, and that they were the first who thought of making
distinctions between them which resembled the public and private
admissions to the court of Louis XIV.
The most remarkable thing in those around Caesar was their love
of letters. Assuredly they belonged no longer to the times when
Roman generals burnt masterpieces of art, or took a pride in being
ignorant. Since Mummius and Marius, letters had succeeded in
penetrating even the camps, which, as we know, are not their usual
abode. Nevertheless, I do not think that so many enlightened men of
letters, so many men of culture and men of fashion have ever been
seen united in any other army. Almost all Caesar’s lieutenants were
private friends of Cicero, and they took pleasure in maintaining a
constant intercourse with him who was regarded as the official
patron of literature at Rome. Crassus and Plancus had learnt
eloquence in pleading at his side, and in what remains to us of the
letters of Plancus, we recognize, by a certain oratorical exuberance,
that he had profited by his lessons. Trebonius, the conqueror of
Marseilles, professed to relish his witticisms very much, and even
published a collection of them. Cicero, however, to whom this
admiration was not displeasing, thought that his editor had put too
much of himself into the introduction under pretence of preparing
the effect of the jokes and making them easier to understand. “They
have exhausted their laughter,” he said, “when they get to me.”
Hirtius was a distinguished historian, who undertook later to finish
the Commentaries of his chief. Matius, a devoted friend of Caesar,
who showed himself worthy of this friendship by remaining faithful
to him, translated the Iliad into Latin verse. Quintus was a poet also,
but a tragic poet. During the winter that he had to fight the Nervii, he
was seized with such an ardour for poetry, that he composed four
pieces in sixteen days: but this was to treat tragedy in a somewhat
military fashion. He sent the one he thought the best, the Erigone, to
his brother; but it was lost on the road. “Since Caesar has
commanded in Gaul,” said Cicero, “the Erigone alone has not been
able to travel in safety.”[270] It is surprising no doubt to meet all at
one time with so many generals who are also men of letters; but what
is still more astonishing is that all those Roman knights who
followed the army, and whom Caesar made his commissaries and
purveyors, collectors of stores, and farmers of the taxes, seem to have
loved literature more than their habits and occupations usually
admit. We find one of those he employed in offices of this kind,
Lepta, thanking Cicero for sending him a treatise on rhetoric as
though he were a man capable of appreciating the present. The
Spaniard Balbus, that intelligent banker, that skilful administrator,
who was able to put the finances of Rome into such good order, and
what was still more difficult, those of Caesar, loved philosophy with
more enthusiasm than one would expect in a banker. He hastened to
have Cicero’s works copied before they were known to the public,
and although he was by character the most discreet of men, he went
so far as even to commit indiscretions in order to be the first to read
them.
But among all these lettered men, it was Caesar who had the most
decided taste for letters: they suited his cultivated nature; they
seemed to him, no doubt, the most agreeable exercise and relaxation
of an accomplished mind. I should not, however, venture to say that
his love for them was wholly disinterested, when I see that this taste
assisted his policy so wonderfully. He was compelled to gain public
favour by every means; now, nothing attracts the general judgment
more than the superiority of intelligence united with that of force.
His principal works were composed with this intention, and we
might say, from this point of view, that his writings were part of his
actions. It was not only to please a few idle men of letters that, during
the latter part of his stay in Gaul, he wrote his Commentaries with
such a rapidity as to astonish his friends. He wished to prevent the
Romans forgetting his victories; he wished, by his admirable manner
of narrating them, to renew, and if possible, to increase, the effect
they had produced. When he composed his two books De Analogia,
he calculated that people would be struck by seeing the general of an
army, who, according to the expression of Fronto, “busied himself
with the formation of words while arrows were cleaving the air, and
sought the laws of language amid the din of clarions and trumpets.”
He knew very well the advantage that his reputation would draw
from these very diverse performances, and how great would be the
surprise and admiration at Rome when they received at the same
moment a treatise on grammar, and the news of a new victory, from
such a distance. The same thought also made him eager for Cicero’s
friendship. If his refined and distinguished nature found a great
pleasure in keeping up some intercourse with a man of so much
cultivation, he was not ignorant of the power this man exercised over
public opinion, and how far his praises would resound when they
came from this eloquent mouth. We have lost the letters that he
wrote to Cicero; but as Cicero was delighted with them, and it was
not very easy to please him, we must believe that they were filled
with flatteries and caresses. Cicero’s answers were also full of the
most lively protestations of friendship. He declared at that time that
Caesar came in his affections immediately after his children, and
indeed almost in the same rank; he bitterly deplored all the
prejudices that had up till then kept him apart from him, and he
resolved to make him forget that he was one of the last who had
entered into his friendship. “I shall imitate,” said he, “the travellers
who have risen later than they wished to do; they double their speed,
and make such good haste that they arrive at their destination before
those who have travelled part of the night.”[271] They vied with each
other, as it were, in compliments; they overwhelmed one another
with flatteries, and emulated each other in works in verse and prose.
On reading the first accounts of the expedition to Britain, Cicero
exclaimed in a transport of enthusiasm: “What prodigious events!
what a country! what people! what battles, and above all, what a
general!” He wrote off immediately to his brother: “Give me Britain
to paint; furnish me with the colours, I will use the brush.”[272] And
he had seriously taken in hand an epic poem on this conquest, which
his occupations prevented him completing as quickly as he wished.
Caesar, on his part, dedicated his treatise De Analogia to Cicero, and
on this occasion said to him in splendid phrases: “You have
discovered all the resources of eloquence, and are the first to use
them. In virtue of this you have deserved well of the Roman name,
and you do honour to our country. You have obtained the most
illustrious of all honours, and a triumph preferable to those of the
greatest generals, for it is better to extend the boundaries of the mind
than to enlarge the limits of the empire!”[273] This, coming from a
victorious general like Caesar, was the most delicate flattery for a
man of letters.
Such were the relations that Cicero kept up with Caesar and his
officers during the Gallic war. His correspondence, which preserves
the memory of them, makes us better acquainted with the tastes and
preferences of all these men of cultivation, and shows them to us in a
very living fashion and draws us closer to them. This is, assuredly,
one of the greatest services it could render to us. We seem, when we
have read it, to be able to understand of what kind the meetings of
these men must have been, and can imagine ourselves present at
their conversations. We are entitled to suppose that Rome took up
very much of their thoughts. From the depths of Gaul, they had their
eyes upon it, and it was to make a little stir there that they took so
much trouble. While marching over so many unknown countries
from the Rhine to the Ocean, all these young men hoped that they
would be talked about at those feasts and assemblies where men of
the world discussed public affairs. Caesar himself, when he crossed
the Rhine on his wooden bridge, reckoned upon striking the
imaginations of all those idlers who met together in the Forum, at
the rostrum, to learn the news. After the landing of his troops in
Britain, we see him hastening to write to his friends, and especially to
Cicero;[274] not that he had much leisure at that moment, but he
looked upon it no doubt as an honour to date his letter from a
country where no Roman had yet set foot. If he was anxious to send
glorious news to Rome, they were also very glad to receive it from
Rome. All the letters that arrived were read with eagerness; they
seemed as it were to carry even to Germany and Britain a whiff of
that fashionable life, which those who have enjoyed can never forget
or cease to regret. It was not enough for Caesar to read the journals
of the Roman people, which contained a dry summary of the
principal political events, and a concise report of the proceedings of
the assemblies of the people. His messengers constantly traversed
Gaul, bringing him letters accurate and full of the most minute
details. “He is told everything,” said Cicero, “small as well as
great.”[275] This news, impatiently waited for, and commented on
with pleasure, must have been the usual subject of his conversations
with his friends. I suppose that, at that sumptuous table of which I
have spoken, after literature and grammar had been discussed, and
they had listened to the verses of Matius or Quintus, the
conversation turned especially upon Rome, of which these elegant
young men, who regretted its pleasures, were never tired of talking.
Certainly, if we could have heard them chatting about the last news,
the political disorders, or, what interested them more, the private
scandals of the city, telling the last rumours afloat, and quoting the
most recent jokes, we should have found it difficult to believe that we
were in the heart of the country of the Belgae, or near to the Rhine or
the Ocean, or on the eve of a battle. I imagine that we should have
rather fancied we were present at a party of clever men in some
aristocratic house on the Palatine or in the rich quarter of Carinae.
Cicero’s letters render us yet another service. They show us the
prodigious effect that Caesar’s victories produced at Rome. They
excited as much surprise as admiration, for they were discoveries as
well as conquests. What was known before him of those distant
countries? A few ridiculous fables that traders related on their
return, to give themselves importance. It was through Caesar that
they were first really known. He first dared to attack, and he
vanquished those Germans who have been depicted as giants, whose
very looks caused terror; he first adventured as far as Britain, where
it was said the night lasted three entire months, and all the wonders
that had been related gave as it were a tinge of the marvellous to his
victories. Nevertheless, not everybody willingly gave way to this
fascination. The most clear-sighted of the aristocratic party, who felt,
though indistinctly, that it was the fate of the republic that was being
decided on the banks of the Rhine, wished to recall Caesar, and to
appoint in his place another general, who might not perhaps
complete the conquest of Gaul, but who would not be tempted to
carry out that of his own country. Cato, who pushed everything to
extremes, when the senate was asked to vote a thanksgiving to the
gods for the defeat of Ariovistus, dared to propose, on the contrary,
that they should deliver up the conqueror to the Germans. But these
objections did not change public opinion, which declared itself in
favour of him who had just conquered with such rapidity so many
unknown countries. The knights, who had become the financiers and
merchants of Rome, congratulated themselves on seeing immense
countries opened up to their operations. Caesar, who wished to
attach them to him, invited them to follow him, and his first care had
been to open them a road across the Alps. The common people, who
love military glory and who freely give way to enthusiasm, were
never tired of admiring him who extended the limits of the Roman
world. On the news of each victory, Rome had public rejoicings, and
offered thanksgivings to the gods. After the defeat of the Belgae, the
senate, under pressure of public opinion, was compelled to vote
fifteen days of solemn thanksgiving, which had never been done for
anybody. Twenty days was decreed, when the success of the
expedition against Germany was reported, and twenty more after the
taking of Alesia. Cicero usually demanded these honours for Caesar,
and he became the mouthpiece of the public admiration when he
said in his noble language: “This is the first time we have dared to
attack the Gauls, hitherto we have been content to repulse them. The
other generals of the Roman people regarded it as sufficient for their
glory to prevent them invading us; Caesar has gone to seek them out
in their own homes. Our general, our legions, our arms have overrun
those countries of which no history has ever spoken, of whose name
the world was ignorant. We had only a footpath in Gaul; now the
boundaries of these nations have become the frontiers of our own
empire. It is not without the signal favour of Providence that nature
gave the Alps for a rampart to Italy. If the entrance had been free to
this multitude of barbarians, Rome never would have been the centre
and the seat of the empire of the world. Now let insurmountable
mountains sink. From the Alps to the Ocean Italy has nothing now to
fear.”[276]
These magnificent eulogies, for which Cicero has been so much
blamed, are easily understood however, and, whatever politicians
may say, it is easy to explain the enthusiasm that so many honest and
sensible people then felt for Caesar. That which justified the
unreserved admiration that his conquests caused, was less their
grandeur than their necessity. They might threaten the future, at that
moment they were indispensable. They later endangered the liberty
of Rome, but they assured her existence then.[277] The patriotic
instinct of the people let them divine what prejudice and fear,
although quite legitimate, hid from the aristocracy. They understood
in a confused way all the dangers that might soon come from Gaul, if
they did not hasten to subdue it. It was not, in truth, the Gauls who
were to be feared—their decadence had already commenced, and
they no longer thought of making conquests—it was the Germans.
Dio is quite wrong in asserting that Caesar wantonly stirred up wars
for the sake of his glory. Whatever advantage he drew from them, we
may certainly say that he rather submitted to them than provoked
them. It was not Rome that went to seek the Germans at that time,
but rather the Germans who came boldly towards her. When Caesar
was appointed proconsul, Ariovistus occupied part of the country of
the Sequani and wished to seize the rest. His compatriots, attracted
by the fertility of this fine country, were crossing the Rhine every day
to join him, and twenty-five thousand had come at one time. What
would have happened to Italy if, while Rome was losing her strength
in intestine struggles, the Suevi and the Sicambri had established
themselves on the Rhone and the Alps? The invasion averted by
Marius a century before was recommencing; it might have caused the
downfall of Rome then as it did four centuries later, if Caesar had not
arrested it. His glory is to have thrown back the Germans beyond the
Rhine, as it was to the honour of the empire to have kept them there
for more than three hundred years.
But this was not the sole or even the greatest effect of Caesar’s
victories. In conquering Gaul, he rendered it entirely and for ever
Roman. That marvellous rapidity with which Rome then assimilated
the Gauls can only be understood, when we know in what a state she
had found them. They were not altogether barbarians like the
Germans; it is to be remarked that their conqueror, who knew them
well, does not call them so in his Commentaries. They had great
cities, a regular system of taxation, a body of religious beliefs, an
ambitious and powerful aristocracy, and a sort of national education
directed by the priests. This culture, although imperfect, if it had not
entirely enlightened their minds, had at least awakened them. They
were frank and inquisitive, intelligent enough to know what they
were deficient in, and sufficiently free from prejudice to give up their
usages when they found better ones. From the very beginning of the
war, they succeeded in imitating the Roman tactics, in constructing
siege machines, and in working them with a skill to which Caesar
does justice. They were still rude and unpolished, but already quite
inclined for a superior civilization for which they had the desire and
instinct. This explains how they did so readily accept it. They had
fought for ten years against the domination of the foreigner; they did
not hesitate for a day to adopt his language and usages. We may say
that Gaul resembled those lands, parched by a burning sun, which
drink in with such avidity the first drops of rain; so completely did
she imbibe the Roman civilization for which she longed before she
knew it, that after so many centuries, and in spite of so many
revolutions, she has not yet lost the mark of it; and this is the only
thing that has endured to the present time in this country where
everything changes. Caesar, then, did not only add a few new
territories to the possessions of Rome; the present that he made her
was greater and more useful; he gave her an entire people,
intelligent, and civilized almost as soon as conquered, which,
becoming Roman in heart as well as in language, sinking her
interests in those of her new nationality, enlisting in her legions to
defend her, and throwing herself with a remarkable ardour and
talent into the study of the arts and letters, shed a new lustre over
her, and for a long time gave a new youth and a return of vigour to
the failing empire.
While these great events were passing in Gaul, Rome continued to
be the theatre of the most shameful disorders. There was no longer
any government; scarcely did they succeed in electing magistrates,
and there was a fight every time the people assembled in the Forum
or in the Campus Martius. These disorders, of which honest men
were ashamed, added still more to the effect that Caesar’s victories
produced. What a contrast was there between the battles fought with
Ariovistus or Vercingetorix and those combats of gladiators that
stained the streets of Rome with blood! And how glorious appeared
the taking of Agendicum or Alesia to people who were only occupied
with the siege of Milo’s house by Clodius or the assassination of
Clodius by Milo! All the statesmen who had remained in Rome,
Pompey as well as Cicero, had lost something of their dignity by
mixing themselves up in these intrigues. Caesar, who had withdrawn
in time, was the only man who had risen amidst the general
degradation. Therefore all those whose heart was wounded by these
sad spectacles, and who had some care for Roman honour, kept their
eyes fixed upon him and his army. As happened at certain moments
of our own revolution, military glory consoled honest men for
scandals and distress at home. At the same time, the excess of the
evil caused men to seek an efficacious remedy everywhere. The idea
began to spread that, in order to obtain repose, it was necessary to
create a strong and durable power. After Cicero’s exile, the aruspices
had predicted that the monarchy was about to recommence,[278] and
one did not need to be a prophet to anticipate this. A few years later,
the evil having increased still more, the republican party itself,
notwithstanding its repugnance, was forced to have recourse to the
violent remedy of a temporary dictatorship. Pompey was appointed
sole consul, but Pompey had shown more than once that he had
neither the vigour nor the resolution necessary to overcome anarchy
entirely. A stronger arm and a more determined will had to be sought
elsewhere, and all eyes turned naturally towards the conqueror of
Gaul. His glory pointed him out for this part; the hopes of some and
the fears of others called him to fulfil it; men’s minds became
accustomed every day to the idea that he would be the heir of the
republic, and the revolution that delivered up Rome to him was more
than half accomplished when he crossed the Rubicon.
II
THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED
AFTER PHARSALIA
The civil war interrupted the intercourse that Cicero had kept up
with Caesar during the Gallic war. He hesitated for a long time to
take part in it, and it was after long indecision that the stings of
conscience, the fear of public opinion, and above all the example of
his friends decided him at length to start for Pompey’s camp. “As the
ox follows the herd,” said he, “I go to join the good citizens;”[279] but
he went half-heartedly and without hope. After Pharsalia he did not
think it was possible to continue the struggle: he said so openly in a
council of the republican chiefs held at Dyrrhachium, and he
hastened to return to Brundusium to hold himself at the disposal of
the conqueror.
What regret must he not have felt, if his thoughts went back
several years, and he remembered his triumphal return from exile!
In that very town, where he had been received with so much
rejoicing, he was constrained to disembark furtively, to conceal his
lictors, to avoid the crowd, and only go out at night. He passed eleven
months there, the saddest of his life, in isolation and anxiety. He was
distressed on all sides, and his domestic affairs did not cause him
less sorrow than public events. His absence had completed the
disorder of his pecuniary affairs. When they were most involved, he
had been so imprudent as to lend what ready money he had to
Pompey: the poniard of the King of Egypt had at the same time
carried off the debtor and put an end to his power of paying. While
he was trying to procure some resources by selling his furniture and
plate, he discovered that his wife was acting in concert with his
freedmen to despoil him of what remained; he learnt that his brother
and his nephew, who had gone over to Caesar, sought to justify
themselves at his expense, and were working to ruin him in order to
save themselves; he saw Tullia, his beloved daughter, again, but he
found her sad and ill, lamenting at the same time the misfortunes of
her father, and the infidelity of her husband. To these very real
misfortunes were joined at the same time imaginary troubles, which
caused him as much suffering; above all, he was tormented by his
habitual irresolution. Scarcely had he set foot in Italy when he
repented having come. According to his habit, his restless
imagination always puts things at their worst, and he is ingenious in
finding some reason for discontent in everything that happens to
him. He laments when Antony wishes to force him to leave Italy;
when he is allowed to remain, he still laments, because this exception
made in his favour may injure his reputation. If Caesar neglects to
write to him, he is alarmed; if he receives a letter from him, however
friendly it may be, he weighs all its expressions so carefully that he
discovers at last some motive for fear; even the broadest and most
complete amnesty does not entirely remove his fears. “When a man
pardons so easily,” he says, “it is because he defers his
vengeance.”[280]
At last, after a sojourn of nearly a year in that noisy and
pestilential town, he was permitted to leave Brundusium. He
returned to his fine country houses that he liked so much, and where
he had been so happy; he found his books again, he resumed his
interrupted studies, he could appreciate again those precious things
which we enjoy without thinking about them while they are ours, and
only begin to appreciate when we have lost them for a moment,
namely, security and leisure. He thought that nothing could equal
the charm of those first days passed tranquilly at Tusculum after so
many storms, and of that return to the quiet pleasures of the mind
for which he felt then that he was in reality made. “Know,” he wrote
to his friend Varro, “that since my return I have been reconciled to
my old friends: I mean my books. In truth, if I fled from them, it was
not because I was angry with them, but I could not see them without
some confusion. It seemed to me that in engaging in such stirring
affairs, with doubtful allies, I have not followed their precepts
faithfully enough. They forgive me, they recall me to their company;
they tell me that you have been wiser than I not to leave them. Now
that I am restored to their favour, I really hope that I shall support
more easily the evils that oppress us and those with which we are
threatened.”[281]
His conduct henceforth was clearly marked out. He owed it to the
great party he had served and defended to hold aloof from the new
government. He must seek in philosophy and letters a useful

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Campaigns, Elections, and the Threat to

Democracy: What Everyone Needs to

Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University

“What Everyone Needs to Know” is a registered trademark of

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION: WHY YOU NEED TO

1 Voting and Participation 1

How does the United States conduct elections? 1

What would happen if every American adult were required to vote,

2 Carving Out Legislative Districts 24

3 Political Parties and Elections 35

What’s the difference between Republicans and Democrats? 38

4 Statewide, Local, and Congressional Elections 53

How many state and local elections are there? 53

6 The 2020 Presidential Election 91

How did Joe Biden win the crowded Democratic primaries? 91

7 The Big Lie and Its Aftermath 104

What was the “Big Lie”? 104

How did state election officials react? 114

8 Money, Mega-​Donors, and Wide-​Open Spending 123

What federal rules and regulations controlled campaign financing

9 Inner Workings of Modern Campaigns 151

10 Direct Democracy—​Ballot Campaigns 163

When and why did ballot campaigns become a part of American

What states have direct democracy through ballot campaigns? What

11 How Campaigns Have Changed 178

Federal candidates now say, “I’m [name] and I approve this

12 Threats to Democracy 189

What’s happened to our faith in democracy? 190

Has any other president refused to participate in the inauguration of

So much has changed in American elections since the first

The final section, ­chapter 12 on the threats to democracy,

The right of all citizens to vote and participate in elections

how campaign consultants have used their influence, how a

• Thanks to federal court decisions, the federal campaign-​

on the amount of money that can be donated or spent;

The book is divided into twelve chapters, with questions

Chapter 6 is new to this edition, and we explore in detail the

ballot campaigns work, and what kinds of issues typically ap-

Many colleagues, friends, and associates helped me develop

Woodford) at the Chocolate Sparrow Coffee Club in Orleans,

Compared to other democracies, the United States has a medi-

How does the United States conduct elections?

What’s the historical background on the right to vote

Ironically, several northern states still prohibited Blacks from

Amendment. There was concern, mostly among opponents,

Why was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 important? What’s

process called preclearance. Once the voting restrictions were

Who votes more, men or women? Why is there a gap

the men’s vote by 12 points—​a total spread of 24 points, the

What are the rates of voting for African Americans, Hispanic

• White, 72.0% in 2020; 80.7% in 2000

In short, the percentage of White voters is dropping, and

Before 2020, had there been efforts to diminish voting

if, say, in North Carolina, the allegiance of African Americans

8 Money, Mega-Donors, and Wide-Open Spending 123

10 Direct Democracy—Ballot Campaigns 163

The final section, chapter 12 on the threats to democracy,

• Thanks to federal court decisions, the federal campaign-

the men’s vote by 12 points—a total spread of 24 points, the

was considerable blowback from the private voting-machine