Overview

Down for the Count explores the tawdry history of elections in the United States--a chronicle of votes bought, stolen, suppressed, lost, miscounted, thrown into rivers, and litigated up to the U.S. Supreme Court--and uses it to explain why we are now experiencing the biggest backslide in voting rights in more than a century. This thoroughly revised edition, first published to acclaim and some controversy in 2005 as Steal This Vote, reveals why America is unique among established Western democracies in its inability to run clean, transparent elections. And it demonstrates, in crisp, clear, accessible language, how the partisan battles now raging over voter ID, out-of-control campaign spending, and minority voting rights fit into a long, largely unspoken tradition of hostility to the very notion of representative democracy. Down for the Count is a multifaceted, deeply researched, and engaging critical assessment of a system whose ostensible commitment to democratic integrity often falls apart on contact with race, money, and power. In an age of high-stakes electoral combat, billionaire-backed candidacies, and bottom-of-the-barrel campaigning, there can be no better time to listen to this troubling and revealing book.

Full Product Details

9781799985112

Table of Contents

Reviews

Provocative and challenging, this book does not tell a pretty story, but it is a story essential to all of us who treasure our democracy.-- Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln

Author Information

Andrew Gumbel is an award-winning British-born reporter for the Guardian and other publications, and the author of several books, including Oklahoma City, about the 1995 bombing. He lives in Los Angeles. Chris MacDonnell is an Earphones Award-winning narrator and a classically trained actor and voice artist whose theater credits include London's West End and the Royal National Theatre, British TV shows, BBC Radio drama, commercials, and films. He is also a published poet and has written comedy and drama for television shows.

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