This paper uses geographic discontinuities at block boundaries to identify the causal effect of polling place assignment on voter turnout, finding that distance to and familiarity with a polling location matter for participation.
Resources
Use our resource library to explore the latest research in the field of election science.
In this paper, authors examine how polling place closures following the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision affected voter wait times during Georgia's 2016 presidential election. Using queueing theory and empirical data, it quantifies the impact of consolidating polling locations on wait times, with particular attention to how closures affected different communities. Authors provide evidence linking post-Shelby polling place reductions to measurably longer lines.
In this paper, authors develop an algorithm that can reduce racial disparities in polling place access by suggesting improved placements for polling places from a list of identified public locations at the state level.
This paper present a case study examining the implementation of Election Day vote centers, finding that successful adoption requires coordination across multiple elements of the election ecosystem.
This study aims to understand poll worker incentives and motivations. Authors analyze original data from a 2015 survey of poll workers during the 2015 British general election. They found that a range of relationships exist between individuals' decision to serve as a poll worker and various incentives, as well as poll workers' socio-economic, social capital, and satisfaction profiles.
This research studies whether characteristics such as election results, turnout, and policies in similar sized counties differ based on the political affiliation of directly elected local election officials. Authors find that regardless of political affiliation, local election officials are more likely to agree on election policies across parties than the general public and that these officials generally do not use their positions to advantage their party.
In this paper, authors examine whether the main predictors of election administration opinions, particularly partisanship and jurisdiction size, are similar for LEOs and the public. They analyze results from two national surveys with identically worded questions administered to both groups, finding that these groups diverge on the topic of election integrity but share similar opinions on election security and reform proposals.
Partisan actors in the United States have recently politicized trust in election administration. This paper suggests solutions for election officials to rebuild trust in democratic processes.
Academic paper examining the use of audits following elections to improve voter confidence.
In this paper, authors present ALPHA, a flexible risk limiting audit method that can handle sampling without replacement and stratification while learning from audited ballots.
In this paper, authors examine the impact of same day registration (SDR) policies on younger voters. They find that SDR disproportionately increases turnout among individuals aged 18–24 and is especially pronounced in presidential elections. The effects of early voting and other reforms are smaller and do not consistently vary by age.
Authors examine the effects of state election administration laws on voter turnout at the state and individual levels for people with disabilities and compare them to that of the non-disabled population. They find that convenience voting reforms such as same-day registration and election-day registration boost turnout for both populations while all mail elections decrease the turnout gap between people with disabilities and the non-disabled.