Election Law
There are many different sources available to you to conduct election law research in the Taggart Law Library. If you need assistance locating or using any of these sources, please consult a librarian.
Secondary Sources |
Primary Sources |
Selected Web Links |
| Case Law | ||
| Encyclopedias | Statutes | |
| ALR Annotations | Regulations | |
| Research Guides | ||
| Journal Articles |
Secondary Sources
Treatises: Legal treatises, or books, are often a good way to begin researching a topic. These treatises can be one volume or multi-volume, and may be updated with pocket parts or as part of a looseleaf service. They provide a discussion of the law in that area and can give you citations and references to both primary sources and other secondary sources.
Some treatises on election law available at the Taggart Law Library include:
America Votes! A Guide to Modern Election Law and Voting Rights. Benjamin Griffith, ed. Chicago: ABA, 2008. KF 4886.A86 2008—Law North
The Election Law Primer for Corporations, 5th ed. Jan Witold Baran. Chicago: ABA, 2008. KF 4886.B37 2008—Law North
Law and Election Politics: The Rules of the Game. Matthew J. Streb, ed. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005. KF 4886.L39 2005—Law North
The U.S. Supreme Court and the Electoral Process. David K. Ryden, ed. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press, 2000. KF 4886.A5 U17 2000—Law North
You can use POLAR, the online catalog, to help you locate appropriate treatises. Examples of some subject headings you might use as subject searches for research on election law include:
Campaign funds—law and legislation—United States
Election law—name of state/country (e.g., Ohio; Great Britain)
Political action committees—law and legislation—United States
Once you find a book on the shelf, you can browse the stacks in a particular area and often find something better than what you were originally looking for! For example, many books dealing with election law can be found around call number KF 4886.
Encyclopedias: Legal encyclopedias provide general overviews of legal topics and references to other research materials. These encyclopedias will have a subject index to help you find entries by topic. For example, if you wanted to look up the topic “absentee ballots” in the index, it might lead you to the encyclopedia’s article “Elections,” which you could then look up in the appropriate encyclopedia volume.
Taggart Law Library has two popular national legal encyclopedias:
American Jurisprudence, 2nd ed. (AmJur)—Law North (also available on Lexis and Westlaw)
Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)—Law North (also available on Westlaw)
There are also encyclopedia sets available for many states if your research focus is state-specific. Ohio Jurisprudence (OJur), for example, is an Ohio legal encyclopedia. State encyclopedias can be found in the state materials section on the south side of the library.
A.L.R. Annotations: Experts in a particular area of the law write the annotations, or articles, found in American Law Reports. They usually focus on a very narrow area of the law and can provide case citations and references to other secondary sources. Annotations can be found topically using the index or from citations found in other secondary sources. Looking up the topic “Elections and Voting” in the index, for example, would lead you to an annotation titled “Liability of Radio or TV Company for Failure to Afford Equal Time to Political Candidates,” 31 ALR 3d 1448.
A.L.R. Annotations are located in Law South and are also available on Lexis and Westlaw.
Research Guides/Bibliographies: Sometimes helpful research sources for a particular area of the law have already been pulled together by someone else. There are several online research guides related to election law, including:
Univ. of Chicago Law Library—Election Law: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/law/db/ref/election.html
Georgetown Law Library—Election Law Research Guide: http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/guides/electionlaw.cfm
Guide to Law Online: Elections—Law Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide/federal/elections.php
Journal Articles: Articles from legal journals and law reviews can also be helpful in explaining an area of the law and providing research references. Articles can often be more current and more narrowly focused than books. For example, on the topic of election law, the article “The Voting Rights Act and Its Foreign Counterparts” from the Spring 2008 issue of the Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems might be helpful.
How do I find journal articles on my topic?
There is usually a two-step process to finding journal articles:
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Use a print or online index to find citations to articles by topic.
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Go to a print or online journal article to get the full text of the article.
Print Journal Indexes:
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books (Beige in color)
Articles indexed by subject and author from 1886-present; citations only--Law North
Current Law Index (CLI—Red & black in color)
Articles indexed by subject, author, and title from 1980-present;citations only--Law North
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (Burgundy in color)
Articles indexed by subject, geographical area, and author from 1960-present--Law North
Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS—Green in color)
Indexes over 1,600 public policy journals, including many non-law titles, by subject; includes non-English language journals (also available online through OhioLINK)--Law North
Online Journal Indexes:
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (Same as print version above, indexing articles from 1985-present)
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books (Online version of Index to Legal Periodicals and Books; indexing from 1908-present and “select” full-text from 1995-present)
LegalTrac (Online version of Current Law Index; citations and some full text of articles from legal periodicals from 1980-present)
Where do I go to get the full text of articles?
Bound Periodicals and Law Reviews: Shelved in alphabetical order by journal title on the north side of the library
Law Reserve: The most current issues of our periodicals are kept on reserve. If the article is recent and you can’t find it on the shelves, ask at the Circulation Desk.
HeinOnline: Full text of law reviews and journals; coverage varies by title—available at the law library from the Library Subscription Services web page
JSTOR: Scholarly journal archive featuring full text page images of articles from journals in history, political science, sociology, and many other disciplines; coverage varies by title—available through the Library Subscription Services web page
Google Scholar: Searches scholarly literature (books, articles, etc.); search results include citations and links to full text. “OLinks” linking feature shows print and online access to materials at ONU and OhioLINK. Available at http://scholar.google.com.
Primary Sources
Primary sources such as cases, statutes, and regulations dealing with election law may be very important to your research. These primary sources are available in a variety of places.
How do I find cases dealing with my topic?
- Secondary Sources: As mentioned earlier, many secondary sources provide case citations. Examples include treatises, legal encyclopedias, ALR annotations, and journal articles.
- West Digests: A tool to help you find cases by subject. They are arranged by predefined topics and subtopics and there are index volumes with each digest set to help you access these topics.
For example, if you looked up “voting machines” in a digest index, it could lead you to the West topic of “Elections.” You could then go to the appropriate volume of the digest (topics are arranged alphabetically) to find that topic. “Elections” is further divided into subtopics that are called key numbers. West key numbers will have a key symbol next to the number of the subtopics that looks something like this:
222
Key number 222 under “Elections” for example, deals with voting machines. You could go directly to that key number in the digest and find short summaries of cases, as well as case citations.
Because there are different types of courts, there are different digest sets, including:
- State digests: West digests for individual states located with state materials (Law South)
- Supreme Court Digest: Supreme Court cases (Law South—Supreme Court Alcove)
- Federal digests: Only federal cases (Law South)
- Decennial Digests: West-reported state and federal cases in all 50 states (Law South)
West digest sets can also help you find a case by name, such as Bush v. Gore. They normally have a Table of Cases volume (or volumes) where you can search by case name in alphabetical order.
- Online Sources:
- Court Web Sites: More and more courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, are now providing their opinions on their official web sites. This can be a good source for finding recent cases, but coverage of past cases is probably limited.
- LEXIS and Westlaw: Cases can be found in these online databases by citation, by party name, or by using various search strategies.
- Casemaker: Online database of opinions from federal and selected state courts (including Ohio). Can be accessed for free by students who are Ohio State Bar Association members by using your last name and member number. Linked on the Library Subscription Services page and also available at http://www.ohiobar.org/Members/Pages/CaseMaker.aspx
- United States Code (USC): There are two annotated versions of the United States Code, United States Code Annotated (USCA—burgundy in color) and United States Code Service (USCS—black). They are produced by different publishers and can differ in the annotations they provide, so it’s a good idea to check both sets.
Some statutes dealing with presidential elections can be found in Title 3. Other statutes may be found elsewhere—use the index volumes at the end of the set to find what you need, or there are volumes listing acts by popular name (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, etc). We keep two copies of both sets in the Law South stacks.
- State codes: Annotated state codes work very much like the federal codes, but may have a different topical organization. For example, in Ohio, statutes dealing with elections are contained in Title 35 of the Ohio Revised Code. The Taggart Law Library has state codes for all 50 states in the state materials section on the south side.
- Online sources: The U.S. Code and state codes can be found online in various places. LEXIS and Westlaw offer annotated codes, while unannotated versions can be found elsewhere. An excellent online source for recent legislation and Congressional information is the Thomas web site, maintained by the Library of Congress, at http://thomas.loc.gov .
Regulations: Administrative regulations are very similar to statutes, except that they are produced by administrative agencies (like the FEC—Federal Election Commission) instead of legislatures.
There are two main sources for federal administrative regulations:
- Code of Federal Regulations (CFR): Includes only final regulations and arranges them by subject order, much like the United States Code. Regulations concerning federal elections, for example, are contained in Title 11 of the CFR. Located in Law Documents (North) at GS 4.108 and available online at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/ecfr
- Federal Register (FR): Includes proposed and final regulations as well as public notices in chronological order. The Federal Register is also the place to find agency contact information and an agency’s description of why it did what it did when issuing a new regulation. Located in Law Documents (North) at GS 4.107 and available online from 1994-present at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html
Selected Links to Election Law Websites
When using the Internet for research, be sure to carefully evaluate the websites you are using to determine how authoritative they are and any potential bias they may have on the topic you are researching.
The Campaign Finance Institute: Non-profit, non-partisan institute affiliated with George Washington University that conducts research and makes recommendations regarding campaign finance. Website includes publications such as releases, analyses, and data tables, figures, and charts.
Election Assistance Commission (EAC): Agency established by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA); website provides guidelines for HAVA compliance as well as information for voters and election officials.
http://www.eac.gov/index_html1
Election Law Blog: Weblog of Prof. Rick Hasen of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Posts on a variety of issues including election law, campaign finance, legislation, voting rights, initiatives, redistricting, and more.
Election Law@Moritz: Web publication from the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University that covers developments in the law of election administration, including information and analysis, opinion, interactive maps, and documents from election law litigation. Information is available topically and also for individual states.
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/
Electionline.org: Website produced by the Pew Center on the States’ Election Initiatives; provides up-to-the-minute news and analysis on election reform.
http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/initiatives_detail.aspx?initiativeID=34044
Election Resources—Law Library of Congress: Bibliography of articles, books, and online resources related to elections.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/llrrel.html
Elections and Ballot Issues: Website from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office containing information for voters, election results, candidate information, campaign finance information, and more.
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/elections/electResultsMain.aspx
Federal Election Commission (FEC): Federal agency charged with administering and enforcing federal campaign finance laws. Website includes campaign finance reports and data, information on the commission, and campaign finance laws and regulations.
National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) Election Links: Website providing a variety of links to websites dealing with federal and state elections.
http://nass.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=104&Itemid=212
Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives—Election Information: Website containing election results, information on current vacancies, congressional districts, and links to other election resources. http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/election.html
Voting and Elections (USA.gov): Links to information on voting and elections from the official government portal.
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Voting.shtml