Resources

The past two decades have seen a decline in trust in American elections that has primarily been driven by a slow but steady decline in trust among Republicans. Surprisingly, the increased polarization in trust most recently has been due more to Democrats suddenly becoming more trusting. Election officials must continue to try to overcome attacks on trust in the system, but it is unclear how long they can sustain the legal system guaranteeing free and fair elections without broad-based public trust in how elections are administered.

This research finds that explicit cues about rigged voting machines increase belief in such theories, especially when the cues target the opposing political party. Explicit cues also decrease confidence in elections regardless of the targeted party, but they have no effect on satisfaction with democracy or support for election security funding.

This research assesses whether messages reinforcing election integrity increased participation in the 2020 election through a large-scale voter mobilization field experiment. California registrants were mailed a letter that described either existing safeguards to prevent vote-by-mail fraud or the ability to track one’s ballot and ensure that it was counted. Analysis of state voter records reveals that neither message increased turnout over a simple election reminder or even no contact.

This research finds even in the absence of elite claims of vote fraud, authors see strong and immediate shifts in mass views. Once the results became clear, those who supported the losing side became significantly less likely to trust that votes were counted correctly or to be satisfied with the election process, while trust and support for the process rose from pre-to post-election for voters on the winning side.

Report offering solutions on how public information campaigns by state election officials could mitigate polarized trust in election integrity.

Employing national surveys from 2012, 2016, 2018, and 2020, this paper that beliefs in election fraud are common and stable across time, and only occasionally relate to partisanship.

This research finds that a majority of Trump voters in the survey sample falsely believed that election fraud was widespread, and that Trump won the election. It also finds that Trump conceding or losing his legal challenges would likely lead a majority of Trump voters to accept Biden’s victory as legitimate, although 40% said they would continue to view Biden as illegitimate regardless.

This academic article studies how messages from political elites influence public confidence in elections and acceptance of democratic norms.

Utilizing the 2008–2016 Survey on the Performance of American Elections (SPAE), the analysis finds that wait times have a negative effect on confidence as do challenges with the voting equipment and voter registration.

This paper focuses on Orange County (CA), using a survey of voters that was implemented immediately after the November 2018 midterm elections. Results show that voters who cast mail ballots are less confident about their own votes being counted correctly than in-person voters

This study uses an experiment to examine how voting method impacts voter confidence. Voters were randomly assigned to either an in-person or absentee voting condition. Participants assigned to the absentee condition expressed lower levels of confidence that their votes would be counted correctly than those assigned to the in-person voting condition

This paper, focusing on Colorado and Washington, finds that the implementation of vote by mail causes a significant decrease in voter confidence in both states. However, this decrease appears to be temporary, disappearing after only single election cycle.