Election Law and Democracy

As Donald Trump won his presidential bid against Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 2024 election, we looked at how Harvard Law School alumni fared in United States congressional contests.

In a conversation with Larry Schwartztol, Lawrence Lessig describes how bad-faith actors could subvert the will of voters.

During the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture, Civil rights attorney and Howard professor Sherrilyn Ifill detailed the need for a national reckoning and greater civic involvement.

Nicholas Stephanopoulos, an election law expert, says America’s voters are shifting — and this has major implications for our elections.

Harvard Election Law Clinic expert Daniel Hessel shares how to vote and make it count in the Bay State.

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams wins award for his bipartisan efforts to expand voting rights in the face of fierce opposition.

In the shadow of a weakened Voting Rights Act, the Harvard Law Election Law Clinic helps harness state power to protect the franchise

Harvard Law elections expert Nicholas Stephanopoulos says that, if chosen by Democratic delegates, ‘Harris has the keys to the [Biden reelection] account.’

Harvard Law School visiting fellow Afrooz Maghzi shares insights on women’s struggles for equality and democracy in her home country of Iran.

Lawrence Lessig warns of threats to overturn the results of the next presidential election

At a recent event hosted by a student organization at Harvard Law School, Congressman Jamie Raskin ’87 urged audience members to use their legal training to get involved.

Two legal scholars, stunned by the Jan. 6 insurrection, game out a half-dozen possible schemes that exploit and spotlight flaws in system.

In an episode of the podcast Harvard Thinking, host Samantha Laine Perfas speaks with Danielle Allen, Steve Levitsky, and Stephen Sachs on how citizens and leaders can reenergize and protect U.S. democracy.

Ruth Greenwood, a visiting assistant clinical professor of law and the director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, was appointed an assistant clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School, effective Jan. 1. 

On November 29, Sherrilyn Ifill delivered a talk titled “Reimagining American Democracy: Becoming Founders & Framers” to mark her appointment as this year's Steven and Maureen Klinsky Visiting Professor of Practice for Leadership and Progress.

In a Harvard Law School Library book talk, Professor Alan Jenkins ’89 discusses his graphic novel series about the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On October 11, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a voting rights case – Alexander v. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP – that will decide whether the Republican-controlled South Carolina legislature deliberately considered race when drawing new congressional district maps

A two-day conference, hosted by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Social Justice, examined election law and electoral systems impact communities of color