Election Law and Democracy

The state of American democracy will be examined in a lecture series, "Democracy," which had its first session this week and will continue through the fall and spring.

With the start of the academic year, a look at nine faculty who have joined Harvard Law School, been promoted, or taken on new roles in 2021.

“We were prepared for everything with regard to this last election cycle, except for the levels to which people would stoop to try to stop democracy and deny the voice of the people,” says Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson ’04.

Harvard Law Today spoke with Ruth Greenwood about the new Election Law Clinic and why she thinks it is important to train a new generation of lawyers to practice in this burgeoning field.

Harvard Law School has announced the launch the new Election Law Clinic, which will give students the opportunity to work on a broad range of cutting-edge issues in areas such as redistricting, voting rights, campaign finance, and party regulation.

The effect of COVID-19 on the law has been transformative and wide-ranging, but as a Harvard Law School panel pointed out on the one-year anniversary of campus shutdown, the changes haven’t all been for the worse.

In a Q&A with Harvard Law Today, Congressman Jamie Raskin ’87, who served as lead House impeachment manager, reflects on a time of trauma and hope.

Harvard Law Visiting Professor Sanford Levinson puts the storming of the Capitol in historical perspective.

Harvard Law School’s James Tierney says police would have treated Black Lives Matter protesters differently.

Guy-Uriel Charles will join the Harvard Law faculty as the inaugural Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. Professor of Law, effective July 1. He will also serve as faculty director of HLS’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society researchers Yochai Benkler and Robert Faris document how polarized media in the United States shape political discourse and the 2020 election.

Ahead of the 2020 presidential election in the United States, experts from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society convened to discuss how platforms are approaching mis- and disinformation and what they can improve going forward.

In an “Election 2020 Debrief” event, a panel of Harvard Law School professors agree that the essential divisions of the American electorate remain unresolved, but find cause for some highly cautious optimism.

Given the strong possibility that Tuesday night’s presidential election will not go off without a hitch, a group of Harvard Law School students have launched a website that explores every other possible election scenario.

On Nov. 3, voters in Massachusetts and Alaska will have the opportunity to adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) statewide. HLS Lecturer Peter Brann argues that Maine has led the nation in adopting the system that better ensures that the most popular candidate in any election wins.

Lawrence Lessig discusses institutional threats to representative democracy.

Harvard professors place the 2020 presidential race in historical context and consider its impact on our future.

In an effort to combat multiple potential vectors of attack on the 2020 U.S. election, two Berkman Klein Center affiliates have published a package of “tabletop exercises,” freely available to decisionmakers and the public to simulate realistic scenarios in which disinformation threatens to disrupt the 2020 election.

This fall, the Equal Democracy Project turns its focus to voter registration and engagement.

The November 2020 general election was shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated, nerve-wracking and deeply contested elections in American history, with most onlookers expecting record-breaking voter turnout. Then a pandemic hit.

In a Q&A, Jason Harrow ’11, who argued before the Supreme Court in a case involving the electoral college and faithless electors, shares where he believes U.S. electoral reform should go from here.