ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. It begins the steps toward establishing a foundational democratic theory for election law. The field of election law has become formalistic and it is rudderless because of a lack of theory, specifically a lack of a democratic theory to provide the principles and generality that the decisions and debates about voting, elections, and representation among other topics require. The book describes the steps toward establishing a foundational democratic theory for election law. It did that in several ways. First, it enunciated more general articulations of democratic theory, seeking to uncover some of the more common themes and values. Second, it did that by describing American conceptions of democratic theory, with one indebted to the constitutional Framers and referred to as Madisonian democracy, the other to the pluralist rethinking of American democracy at the midpoint of the twentieth century.
