Mercedes-Benz Lecture

Constructing the Right to Vote

The right to vote is foundational to American democracy. It depends, however, upon the government’s ability to build, fund, and administer election systems that work. These obligations are not ancillary but rather central to the right to vote. In this talk, Joshua Sellers illustrates how voting is, in his words, “reactive” — directed and defined by some who seek to limit the right rather than by those who advocate for it. He outlines the need to construct more formally the right to vote around the concept of “electoral adequacy.” For Sellers, electoral adequacy entails the obligation to provide a baseline level of voting services. Identifying its requirements should be the task of scholars in election law, political science, and public administration. In detailing the potential benefits of an electoral adequacy framework in the United States, Sellers looks as well at the relevant work of European scholars.