The Battle Over the Ballot: The National Fight Over Voting and Emerging Bipartisan Solutions

Abe Scarr, director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, spoke days before the 2016 general election. He traced the history of the franchise from property-owning white men through the Voting Rights Act and the Shelby County v. Holder decision, then gave an insider account of Illinois election-law campaigns: online and election-day registration, campus early voting at public universities, and the automatic voter registration bill passed with bipartisan support in May 2016 and vetoed that August. Audience questions followed on interstate data matching, voting machines and redistricting.