Election Administration and the Politics of Voter Access

Democratic countries vary widely in the extent to which the administration of the electoral process facilitates voter participation, showing a great deal of variation in the extent to which countries holding free elections make the voting process accessible to all citizens.

This book is the first systematic study to investigate why it is easier to vote in some democracies than in others. Drawing on over 60 elite interviews with current and former election administrators, legislators and civil society leaders from in-depth analyses of case studies throughout Latin America, it addresses how political parties and their leaders interact in constructing election administration rules and procedures. Using a theoretical framework, the author identifies multiple pathways to inclusive and restrictive election administration, centred on electoral threat, party capacity and electoral management body composition and develops the concept of election administration inclusiveness, which considers all of the administrative requirements and procedures that a citizen confronts in exercising his or her right to vote.

This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, Latin American politics, political parties, democracy studies and more broadly international relations and law.

Kevin Pallister?is an Assistant Professor of Global Politics at Bridgewater College, USA. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research on Guatemalan political parties and indigenous peoples has been published in the journal Latin American Politics and Society, and he is the co-author (with Susan Hyde) of a book chapter on electoral commissions and election observation published in the Routledge Handbook of Comparative Political Institutions (2015).?He has also worked as an international election observer in Guatemala for the Organization of American States.