Resources

This study investigates the perspective of a sample of support personnel regarding the value of voting for people with an intellectual or developmental disability and the extent to which they have provided voting instruction to their clients. Study findings revealed that very few clients vote, are registered to vote, or are provided any instruction on how to vote or be informed about voting positions.

Kimball and Baybeck follow up on the work of Creek and Karnes examining the challenges of implementing HAVA requirements in rural jurisdictions. Authors find that rural jurisdictions do in fact have higher costs per voter than their urban counterparts.

This research seeks to expand the current understanding of usability by exploring its relationship to trust in two contexts - popular consumer products that people can choose to use and voting systems that citizens must use to participate in an election. In both studies, authors found that more usable systems were the most trusted.

Creek and Karnes provide one of only a handful of analyses focusing on rural election administration. Their 2010 paper examines the challenges and costs of implementing HAVA requirements in rural jurisdictions, and whether state support can help equalize the costs of implementing these requirements in rural versus urban jurisdictions.

This paper analyzes postregistration costs and state policies that can make it easier for registered citizens to vote. Authors find that mailing each registrant a sample ballot and information about the location of their polling place, and providing a longer voting day enhance turnout, especially by the young and the less educated.

In this paper, Berinsky examines electoral reforms design to make it easier for registered voters to cast their ballot. He finds that these reforms increase socioeconomic biases in the composition of the voting public and recommends using political engagement strategies to improve ballot access, rather than institutional changes.

Stein's article "Early Voting" provides a foundational analysis of who votes early, how early voters behave in contrast to election-day voters, and whether their ballot choices differ. The article discusses findings related to attitudinal and demographic differences between early and election-day voters, and partisan advantage, among others.

In this paper, authors develop a resource model of political participation whereby time, money, and civic skills are distributed differently among socioeconomic groups. Access to these resources help individuals overcome voting barriers and thus have a strong impact on political participation.

In this paper, Aldrich asserts that voting is a "marginal activity" which is affected by costs. He finds that because the costs and benefits of voting are low, small "non-rational" factors such as social pressure or psychological stakes can impact a person's decision to vote. These findings are foundational to academic literature on voter turnout.