Robinson Woodward-Burns

American state lawmakers increasingly constrain voting rights. Why is this? This book project asserts that recent congressional deadlock and rightward Supreme Court jurisprudence defer election administration to the states. Conservative state lawmakers have consequently weakened state constitutional voting and election protections. The book details three such tactics. First, legislators suppress the vote, impeding ballot access – consider poll closures in majority-Black precincts in Georgia’s 2018 election. Second, legislators subvert the vote by weakening independent election oversight – for example, in 2021 the Georgia legislature considered a bill to allow lawmakers to unilaterally select presidential electors. Finally, legislators skew the vote by biasing legislative districting – in Wisconsin in 2018, efficient gerrymandering allowed Republicans to capture 63% of lower house seats despite winning only 45% of the popular vote. These constitutional changes affect representation and policymaking. On average across state lower houses, Republican seat share and vote share were roughly equal in 2010, but by 2016, Republican seat share exceeded vote share by 2.4 percentage points nationally, suggesting these constitutional changes have helped entrench Republican majorities.