VOTING RIGHTS ON TRIAL: A HANDBOOK WITH CASES, LAWS, AND DOCUMENTS by Charles L. Zelden. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2002. 347 pp. Cloth $85.00. ISBN: 1-57607-794-2.

Reviewed by John F. Kozlowicz, Department of Political Science, The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Charles Zelden has put together an extensive history and analysis of voting rights' issues in the United States as well as a number of primary documents related to voting rights. This volume is part of the ABC-CLIO On Trial Series, which according to Professor Zelden, who is also the series editor, seeks to explore in various ways litigation of significant legal controversies, which are on trial. To modify the famous phrase of Charles Dickens, it is a good book in some ways, and it is a poor book in some ways.

This book has the lofty ambition of evaluating voting rights from colonial times through the Bush-Gore race of 2000. To accomplish this significantgoal, Zelden has had to make tough decisions related to the amount of discussion of various voting rights controversies. His primary focus has been with the role played by the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, in bringing about an expansion of voting rights. Although it is hard to dispute the primary role played by the courts in expanding the right vote and settling voting right disputes, scholars of the legislative and executive branch might rightfully claim that their institutions of study have not been given the credit they deserve.

However meritorious the author's ambition to cover the history of voting rights controversies in the United States, the book is doomed to failure by the nature of this ambition and the space limitation for volumes in this series. Attempting to describe and evaluate the history of voting rights in the United States in a mere 180 some pages is impossible. Much of what Professor Zelden includes is perceptive and analytical, but too often the discussion is truncated. Certainly, the reader will acquire an overall perspective of the full of voting rights range of controversies throughout the history of the United States. What the reader will miss will be an understanding of the richness of many of these controversies.

There is little question that African-Americans have suffered extensive deprivations of voting rights in this country. Zelden accurately chronicles how the denial of their right to vote was maintained by the dominant political machinery of the nation and corrected in a number of key decisions of the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, the author does not sufficiently deal with the denial of the right to vote of Mexican-Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and women.

The remaining half of the book is reserved for various historical and legal documents, a listing of key people, laws and concepts, and a chronology as well as the obligatory table of cases and bibliography. I am uncertain how much the all of the various items in Part Two add to the book.

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Most of the documents included are on the web and could easily be found by most readers with even the most limited of web search skills. In fact, it might have been more useful to include a few pages describing how court cases, statutes, and historical documents can be accessed off the web rather than including the actual documents. Space constraints also limited the number of documents that could be included. The author did a fine job of seeking to include only key documents, but he had to exclude so many that it is easy to argue for many documents that were not included. If an instructor wanted to adopt this book for a course on voting and
elections, that instructor would realize that there are other books out there that more fully discuss voting rights, and there are casebooks that provide a greater array of cases. This book falls short on each making it a difficult choice for use in courses on voting and elections or civil rights and liberties.

A page or two of URLs to key documents would have been useful and provided access to key documents. Assuming the book is designed for an undergraduate course on voting rights and elections, the selection of cases is inadequate for a typical three credit or quarter course. It would have been more useful to direct students to the cases and statues on the web and provide focused questions on the cases. Then the author could have devoted far more of his effort then on the history and analysis of voting rights, which is the strong point of the book.

Time after time, the author seemed compelled to discuss something like apportionment in far too brief a manner. Key early cases like BAKER v. CARR and REYNOLDS v. SIMS are nicely discussed, but more recent cases seemed to get scant attention. The reader would also be well served by having more information on the impact of the reapportionment and redistricting cases especially given the "on trial" theme of the book and the series of which it is a part.

The organization of this book does not seem well planned. The author begins with a chapter on Historical Background looking at the denial of voting rights. A major heading is "Vote Denial: Democracy's Dark Secret." This is hardly a secret to most serious observers of American politics though it is a major problem that does deserve considerable discussion. Then the author proceeds to Chapter Three entitled "Cases." Herein, he discusses how various Supreme Court cases have both restricted voting and enhanced the expansion voting rights. Here the author is frequently repeating in a slightly different perspective the issues and conflicts discussed in the previous chapter. Merging those two chapters would have been more efficient and less repetitive and allowed a more complete discussion of the various issues he raises in both. The idea of examining the problem and then proceeding to the cases sounds like a good idea, but it just does not work in this book. The limited space does not allow the luxury of such duplication when so much is unable to be fully covered.

The appendix-like features following the section on primary documents are of mixed values. I did like the author's Chronology of voting issues as I think it would be helpful to students attempting to put the various voting controversies and solutions discussed in historical perspective. The Annotated Bibliography will be a valuable asset for students with the author providing a good selection of leading works with concise and evaluative annotations.

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Unfortunately, the "Key People, Laws, and Concepts" section consumes many pages with much material that is either already in the text or not really needed. For example, the author includes "Vote Denial" which he defines as "Concept and practice of excluding individuals or groups from the election process due to a perceived incapacity on the part of these individuals or group members to properly fulfill the role of voter." A substantial number of the cases discussed in the commentary are included here with nothing new added for the reader.

With so much of what this reviewer has written above being negative and critical, does that mean that the book is of little value to political scientists, students, and general readers? Quite to the contrary, as much of the criticism is based on the failure of the author to devote more of his effort to the positive aspect of this study. The commentary is perceptive. The author's argument of how court decisions have led to an expansion of voting rights in the United States is persuasive and
supported by his effective citation and use of case law. The long chapter on cases and the considerable shorter one on impact and legacy constitute the strongest points of the book. Yet together they are but a third of the book. These are the chapters that would be a valuable reading addition to a voting and elections course or even a course on civil rights and liberties. Given the high cost of books today, many instructors including this reviewer would be reluctant to put it in the mix of required books for a course. Would it make the list of recommended books? Absolutely. There is a considerable amount of material to educate the student of
democracy in the United States. Were there more commentary of the level of the two chapters cited above, this reviewer could endorse and recommend the book
with unqualified enthusiasm.

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Copyright 2002 by the author, John F. Kozlowicz.