This book demonstrates that nineteenth-century electoral politics were the product of institutions that prescribed how votes were cast and were converted into political offices.

Erik J. Engstrom is a professor of political science at the University of California, Davis. He previously taught at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received his PhD from the University of California, San Diego, in 2003. Engstrom is the author of Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy. His research articles have appeared in numerous journals, including the American Political Science Review and the American Journal of Political Science.

1. An era in need of explanation; 2. The puzzle of responsive elections; 3. National forces in presidential elections; 4. House of Representatives elections; 5. Senate indirect and direct elections; 6. State legislative elections; 7. Gubernatorial elections; 8. Dismantling the party-ticket system; Appendix: states as bundles of electoral laws, 1840-1940.