The Integrity of American Elections

24 October 2006

Professor Kenneth Mayer

On the eve of the 2006 U.S. elections, Professor Mayer, this year’s holder of the Fulbright-ANU Distinguished Professorship in Political Science, reviews the state of the electoral process in America asking how effective the process of running elections in the United States is and how it compares to the management of elections in Australia. In light of the problems in Florida during the presidential election of 2000 and the subsequent passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, Professor Mayer posed the fundamental question: how can American voters know that the right candidate won?

This lecture is presented by the Research School of Social Sciences, ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences.

Broad Topics: Arts and Social Sciences

Sub-topics: Policy & Political Science

Areas: ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences

Kenneth Mayer obtained his Ph.D in Political Science at Yale University in 1988 and joined the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989. Among his publications are The Political Economy of Defense Contracting (Yale U.P., 1991), The Dysfunctional Congress (Westview Press, 1999), and With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (Princeton U.P., 2001), which won the Neustadt Prize the following year. He is a member of the editorial board of The American Political Science Review and is Book Review Editor of Congress and the Presidency. In 2006 Professor Meyer was selected to be the first holder of the Fulbright-ANU Distinguished Chair in American Political Science.

Part of the 2006 Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series