ABSTRACT
Throughout the twentieth century, the role of a state’s Secretary of State and their relationship to election administration was relatively unnoticed and publicly unremarkable. Under the US Constitution, Congress has explicit authority to make laws regarding the administration of elections for congressional and presidential elections. Congress’s authority to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the US Constitution enabled the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 (VRA), one of the most seminal pieces of legislation in the country’s history. Amongst jurisprudence, it regulates the parameters of their intervention in election administration, federal courts, like Congress, maintain a primary role as overseer in ensuring that state and federal authorities regulate elections in compliance with the Court’s view of constitutional duties and limitations. While the federal role in elections is cabined by the parameters of federalism, state legislatures are the primary source of laws regulating the electoral process.
