We will briefly review the description of the deuteron electromagnetic form factors and describe an experiment recently completed at the Bates Linear Accelerator Center (M.I.T.): the measurement of the recoil deuteron tensor polarization (t 20, t 21) in elastic electron-deuteron scattering up to q = 4.6 fm −1. We will compare different experimental approaches for the determination of this observable and discuss various options to extend those measurements to still higher momentum transfers.