Resources

This brief documents the emergence and growth of mail balloting and details the unique administrative arrangements associated with this method of voting, related research and best practices, and areas where there is still more to learn. Voting by uniformed and overseas citizens—"UOCAVA” voters—is a special case not focused on in this report.

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of absentee/mail voting and early in-person policies between January 2020 (pre-pandemic) and November 2022. This research highlights that most absentee/mail voting policies were not significantly affected by the pandemic. If changes were made to policies for the 2020 election, they reverted to the policy existing prior to the pandemic.

This June 2023 report outlines best practices for improving poll worker recruitment. It identifies barriers such as overly restrictive residency and age requirements, heavy reliance on political parties for hiring, and insufficient compensation and training standards. The report recommends concrete reforms to help election administrators build a more diverse and sufficient poll worker workforce.

This report highlights key factors influencing poll worker recruitment and retention, including poll worker pay, implementation of partisan balance requirements, and harassment. It also offers potential strategies legislators can use to improvement address these factors and improvement poll worker recruitment and retention.

Article explaining a study investigating how videos were used to restore voter trust in different locations across the country.

This brief studies trends in mail ballot rejection rates in 2020 compared to previous years and how different factors, including sets of policies and policy changes, the political environment, and voter outreach, may have contributed to these changes in an extraordinary election year. Authors note potential areas of further study to better understand how voters casting their ballots by mail can ensure their votes are counted.

Authors describe the difficulties that vote-by-mail presents for Native American voters. Specifically, “members of the 574 federally recognized tribes” face barriers to political participation to a greater degree than any other racial or ethnic group. The authors also define measures that can be taken to level the field, all while respecting social distancing.

This article, written during the COVID-19 pandemic, discusses the overarching trend of poll worker shortages in U.S. elections. Authors identify potential strategies to address shortages, rooted in the practices of state and local election officials. While the pandemic serves as the backdrop for this article, its recommendations remain relevant to elections today.

This resource provides strategies for election officials for recruiting and retaining election workers. It features direct examples from local jurisdicitions that have had success implementing these strategies.

In this resource, Verified Voting explains why post-election audits of paper ballots provide evidence for election outcomes and opportunities to correct outcomes when needed.

Pew commissioned a 2016 survey of almost 3,000 citizens in five Great Lakes states—Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio—as they exited MVAs after completing licensing transactions in order to determine the extent to which their experience complied with the Motor Voter law. Their findings touch on whether voters were offered the opportunity to register to vote or update their registration, how voters registered, and the mean transaction time to register.

This resource provides an overview of state poll worker policies, highlighting the variance between states and need for unique approach to designing and implementing poll worker programs. Statutory references are provided for state laws related to poll worker qualifications, youth poll worker programs, residency requirements, and partisan distribution.