Abstract. The authors examine the dynamics of a magnetic dipole in a static electric field. Applications of interest are the Aharonov-Casher effect and spin-orbit coupling. The ideal Aharonov-Casher effect is shown to involve a correlation between the moving particle and the internal coordinates of a voltage source. A similar relation has been demonstrated in the Aharonov-Bohm experiment. The authors also give a simple derivation of spin-orbit coupling based purely on nonrelativistic physics.