Drawing on evidence from the Philippines as well as countries such as the United States, Venezuela, South Africa, and Taiwan, The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform investigates why citizens sometimes find themselves alienated or abruptly disenfranchised. Schaffer examines numerous incidents in which election reforms have, whether intentionally or accidentally, harmed the quality and experience of democracy. These cases include anti-vote-buying civic education campaigns and voter registration reform in the Philippines, efforts to insulate voters from outside influences in nineteenth-century France, the purge of supposed felons from the voter rolls of Florida ahead of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, and current debates over the reliability and security of electronic voting machines.

Frederic Charles Schaffer teaches political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has previously held positions at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has worked as an election specialist in Iraq and Haiti. He is the editor of Elections for Sale: The Causes Consequences of Vote Buying, also from Ateneo de Manila University Press.

2009/264pp
bookpaper/paperback