Heather K. Gerken is the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she teaches election and constitutional law. She is a frequent media commentator on elections and has written for the New Republic, Roll Call, Legal Affairs, and the Legal Times. Despite howls for reform, the only thing separating us from another election disaster of the kind that hit Florida in 2000, and that almost struck again in Ohio in...

A woman puts her own happiness aside in pursuit of justice as the civil rights movement sweeps through the South  As she approaches the end of her teen years, Meridian Hill has already married, divorced, and given birth to a son. She's looking for a second chance, and at a small college outside Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1960s, Meridian discovers the civil rights movement. So fully does the cause guide her life that she's willing to sacrifice...

"Voter suppression has plagued America since its inception, and so has the issue of identity-who is really American and what that means. When tied together, as they are in our modern politics, citizens are harmed in overt, subtle, and even personal ways.Stacey Abrams experienced the effects firsthand, running one of the most unconventional races in modern politics as the Democratic nominee for the governorship in Georgia and the first black woman...

"Creating and sustaining a social movement costs money. In the early 1960s, after years of grassroots organizing, civil rights activists convinced non-profit foundations to donate in support of voter education and registration efforts. One result was the Voter Education Project (VEP), which formally began in 1962, showed far-reaching results almost immediately, and organized the groundwork that eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Though...

"In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively...

"An answer to the assault on voting rights—crucial reading in advance of the 2020 presidential election. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is considered one of the most effective pieces of legislation the United States has ever passed. It enfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters, particularly in the American South, and drew attention to the problem of voter suppression. Yet in recent years there has been a continuous assault on access to the ballot...