Staff Picks Nov. 2017 | Ballot Boxing: Winning and Losing the Right to Vote
![A white supremacist Democratic Party campaign poster from Pennsylvania, 1866, promoting Hiester Clymer's candidacy against John W. Geary. [Wikipedia | Library of Congress]](http://files.pressible.org/267/files/2017/11/Racistcampaignposter1-300x241.jpg)
A white supremacist Democratic Party campaign poster from Pennsylvania, 1866, promoting Hiester Clymer’s candidacy against John W. Geary. [Wikipedia | Library of Congress]

As Vice Chair of President Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity, Kansas Secretary of State Kris K. Kobach has argued that voter fraud is rampant.
It was just over a week ago that New York voters reprised our roles in state and local political theatre, this time with less melodrama than 2016. We overwhelmingly voted against rewriting the state constitution (meaning that Education and the 1967 Constitutional Convention will remain among the publications from the most recent Convention), and a twenty year low in voter turnout produced no upsets in the city races (check eBooks New York City Politics: Governing Gotham and Upsetting the Apple Cart: Black-Latino Coalitions in New York City[…] for insight).
Like many Americans, I’ve been agnostic about the impact of voting on American democracy. Curating this collection did not change that, but it did make me think more deeply about the nature of democracy, civics education, and what it means to be a citizen- hopefully it has provoked similar reflection for you!
Additional Print Resources in our Collection
- Civic Literacy through Curriculum Drama, Grades 6-12 by Catherine A. Franklin [2009]
- Are Women People? A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times by Alice Duer Miller [1915]
- Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century by Bev Harris and David Allen [2004]
- Citizen: an American Lyric by Claudia Rankine [2014]
- Votes for Women: the Fight for Suffrage by Museum of American Political Life [1993]
E-Resources
- Upsetting the Apple Cart: Black-Latino Coalitions in New York City from Protest to Public Office by Frederick Douglass Opie [2014]
- David Dinkins and New York City Politics: Race, Images, and the Media by Wilbur C. Rich [2006]
- Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City by Jonathan M. Soffer [2010]
- The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans’ Right to Vote by Tova Andrea Wang and Janice Nittoli [2012]
And check out this month’s featured databases for Politics and Education.
On Exhibit
U.S., General
- Presidential Losers by David J. Goldman [1970]
- With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote by Ann Bausum [2004]
- Why We Vote: How Schools and Communities Shape Our Civic Life by David E. Campbell [2006]
- The History and Politics of Voting Technology: In Quest of Integrity and Public Confidence by Roy G. Saltman [2006]
- The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America by John R. MacArthur [2012]
- Manifesto Addressed to the President of the United States from the Youth of America Edited by Alan Rinzler [1970]
- Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government by Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels [2016]
- The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth About Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High-Finance Fraudsters by Greg Palast [2004]
- Vote! by Eileen Christelow [2003]
- Struggle for Black Voting Rights: A Jackdaw Adapted by Muriel L. Dubois [2005]
- The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life by Michael Schudson [1999]
- A History of Political Parties in America: a Jackdaw by Christine Brendel Scriabine [2000]
- They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti [2010]
- Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 by Hunter S. Thompson [1973/ 2012]
- Ida B. Wells: Let the Truth be Told by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Bonnie Christensen [2008]
- Fannie Lou Hamer: Fighting for the Right to Vote by Laura Baskes Litwin [2002]
- Woman’s Suffrage: The Fight for Equality; Twelve historical photo-posters Compiled by Christine Scriabine, edited by Jan Morrissey [2008]
New York State
- Education and the 1967 Constitutional Convention; An analysis of selected proposals affecting education which may come before the convention by Arvid Burke [1966]
New York City
- Puerto Rican Citizen: History and Political Identity in Twentieth-Century New York City by Lorrin Thomas [2010]
- The Future of Us All: Race and Neighborhood Politics in New York City by Roger Sanjek [1998]