"We believed that racial gerrymandering and various types of electoral devices intended to guarantee a certain number of seats was not good public policy," Mr. Cooper said.
In 1898 South Dakota became the first state to adopt the referendum and initiative as electoral devices through which voters could express their wishes regarding government policy or proposed legislation.
The electoral college is a device that balances nationalism with states' rights and leavens democracy's passions with deliberation and reason.
The states, left to their own devices, adopted electoral methods best described as higgledy-piggledy, except that everyone agreed that Election Day ought to be a public holiday, involving plenty of stumping, debating, and parading.
Paid for by a political group officially acting separately from the campaign of George H. W. Bush, it was the political equivalent of an improvised explosive device, demolishing the electoral hopes of Dukakis, then the governor of Massachusetts.
But the fact that such assurances are necessary demonstrates the concern among Democrats facing stiff challenges that they may be left to their own devices against a Republican electoral wave.
Disclosure rules intended to substitute for meaningful regulation becomes the unwitting device by which our genuine electoral sentiments are auctioned off.
The integrity of the electoral process can be maintained by a variety of devices and practices, including a permanent and up-to-date register of voters and procedures designed to make the registration process as simple as possible.
The atmosphere was equal parts revival and situation room, participants said: Phones and electronic devices were banned from some panels, as Koch strategists detailed next year's electoral battlegrounds and donors committed contributions to particular states or projects.
Under electoral law "undue influence" is considered a corrupt practice and includes the use of "a fraudulent device or contrivance" to "impede or prevent or intend to impede or prevent the free exercise of the franchise".
It says that the electoral register is no longer trustworthy and that a combination of voting machines and fingerprinting devices at polling stations threatens the secrecy of the vote.
