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Introduction On July 4, 1776, the thirteen American colonies formally declared their indepen­ dence from Great Britain. Over the course of the next 243 years, the United States expanded westward, purchasing some territory (e.g., the Louisiana Purchase) and taking other territory by force (e.g., the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo). Along the way, it accepted two independent countries (Texas and Hawaii) as states and expe­ rienced a civil war and the short-lived secessionist Confederate States of America. And, in 2020, territorial issues have not completely died away, as many residents of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico continue to advocate for statehood. Throughout U.S. history, voting rights, elections, and representation have evolved considerably. Voting rights were expanded, and representation of women, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and members of the LGBTQ community improved, although in all cases, descriptive represen- tation of the members of these groups in the corridors of power has not reached levels proportionate with their presence in the population. The political party system also evolved with the formation of a two-party sys- tem featuring the Democratic Party and the Whig Party, which was then sup- planted by a two-party system featuring the Democratic Party and the Republican Party this two-party duopoly continues to dominate the country’s political party system in 2020. At various times, third parties emerged and experienced some modest success, such as the Populist Party at the end of the nineteenth century or George Wallace’s American Independent Party in the 1968 presidential election, but none have ever threatened the dominance of the Democratic and Republican parties. During this same time period, the United States moved from the use of party- supplied ballots to government-supplied ballots (the Australian Ballot), with a wide variety of voting devices employed. In the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 carried out the most sweeping change in voting devices in modern U.S. history, dispensing with punch-card and mechan­ ical lever voting systems and generally replacing them with a variety of methods of electronic voting. At the same time, over the last thirty years, it has become easier for Americans to register to vote via initiatives such as the federal “Motor Voter” act of 1993 and state-level adoptions of online voter registration. Some aspects of the U.S. electoral system have remained relatively constant over time, such as the use of the Electoral College to elect the president and the