Local voter-backed initiatives can play a significant role in dictating voting rights and election rules

The following is from the introduction to an exhaustive essay on local voting by Joshua A. Douglas of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Take a look:

In this Essay, Joshua A. Douglas highlights how local voter-backed initiatives can play a significant role in dictating voting rights and election rules. The Essay provides courts with a test to employ when facing an inevitable judicial challenge to one of these local election law initiatives. Professor Douglas argues that courts should generally defer to local rules that expand the electorate or open up the political process to more people, but should not defer to local voting restrictions or rules that tend to aggrandize the majority’s control or lead to entrenchment. He concludes that local laws that enhance democratic participation by expanding the electorate or reducing campaign finance barriers to running for office epitomize the benefits of local democracy and deserve judicial deference.

According to his bio as a Robert G. Lawson & William H. Fortune Associate Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky:

Professor Joshua A. Douglas teaches and researches election law and voting rights, civil procedure, constitutional law, and judicial decision making. His most recent scholarship focuses on the constitutional right to vote, with an emphasis on state constitutions, as well as the various laws, rules, and judicial decisions impacting election administration. He has also written extensively on election law procedure.

Professor Douglas has published in top journals, including the Penn Law Review Online, Vanderbilt Law Review, Washington University Law Review, George Washington Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, and the Election Law Journal, among others. His article Procedural Fairness in Election Contests was a winner of the 2011-12 SEALS Call for Papers, and he has been cited extensively in major law review articles and case books in the field.

He is also a co-author of an Election Law case book (Aspen Publishers 2014) and a co-editor of a new book, Election Law Stories (Foundation Press 2016), which tells the behind-the-scenes stories of the major cases in the field. In addition, his media commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, Reuters, Politico, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, and Slate, among others, and he has been quoted in major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He appeared live on CNN on Election Day 2016. He is also a repeat guest blogger on PrawfsBlawg. Further, he was the founder and initial Chair of the AALS Section on Election Law.

Prior to joining UK, Professor Douglas clerked for the Honorable Edward C. Prado of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and practiced litigation at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Professor Douglas earned his J.D. from George Washington University Law School, where he was an articles editor on the GW Law Review.