State+and+Local+Elections

Power Points:



= Description =

Elections are a central feature of governing institutions on all levels of government in the United States. In this section we start to come to terms with the overall nature of elections prior to digging into specific aspects of them. The slides above start off by describing elections and then pointing out features in the United States Constitution make election law primarily a function of the states.

A key point here is that each of the 50 states is able to determine how its elections are run, with certain limitations placed upon them by the national government. The purpose of this section is to understand what these laws tend to be like and what the nature of limits are. We actually touch on these in more depth in other sections. The purpose of this section is to introduce the concept, as well as run through the basic features of elections.

= Goals =

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