CSLS Speaker Series: “What People Get Wrong about the Right to Vote”

Featuring Emily Zhang, Assistant Professor of Law, Berkeley Law.

Voters make mistakes. They don’t bring the right ID to the polling place. They register to vote after the registration deadline. They don’t re- register to vote after they move. They fail to “clothe” their mail-in ballots. They think they’re eligible to vote when they’re not. And they think they’re not eligible to vote when they are.
We should take these mistakes seriously. Understanding what mistakes they make and why will help us better design election regimes and policies that maximize voter participation. Fixing the mistakes that cause ballots to be thrown out—and that we therefore capture in administrative data—would require making election laws less complicated and more intuitive. Addressing the mistakes that prevent people from trying to vote in the first place—and that therefore go unrecorded—would require much more than legal change.

Cosponsored with the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice and the Center for Right-Wing Studies

Reception: Lunch 12:15-12:45p.m. in the Kadish Library 
Program: 12:45-2:00p.m. in the Philip Selznick Seminar Room

Register for the livestream via Zoom.    
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If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) to fully participate in this event, please contact csls@law.berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.