This analysis focuses on whether counties that had previously been “covered” purged voters at a higher rate than noncovered counties after the coverage formula was struck down. It finds increases in purge rate of between 1.5 and 4.5 points in formerly covered jurisdictions post-Shelby, compared with counties that had not been subject to preclearance. Most of the increase came immediately, as the effect in 2014 is substantively and significantly higher than that in 2016.
Resources
Use our resource library to explore the latest research in the field of election science.
Through interviews with 24 poll workers from the city of Chicago, Suttmann-Lea assesses how poll workers make decisions about voter eligibility under Illinois' signature matching law, finding that personal perspectives and experiences influence their evaluations. She also discusses how these poll workers stated they would proceed in the instance of a mismatch signature. These findings shed light on how poll worker interpretations of election law shape their application of the law.
Hostetter argues that portable poll worker registration—permitting registered voters to work statewide in any election precinct—increases the ease of filling poll worker positions. She uses the 2008-2018 Election Administration and Voting Survey to test her hypothesis. She finds support for her hypothesis, suggesting that potential benefits would arise from allowing citizens to work in any precinct.
CEIR has surveyed states about voter registration database security every two years since 2018. These surveys have demonstrated widespread best practices in respondent states.
This research finds that when automatic voter registration (AVR) is endorsed by Democratic leaders, Republicans (and independents) expect AVR to reduce the fairness and legitimacy of elections, while Democrats are generally resistant to partisan cues.
This book examines how elections are run in the United States, highlighting recent innovations in voter registration, voting options, and voter convenience, among other things. Hale and Brown's analyses is supported by original data gathered from state and local election officials and policymakers across the United States.
In this article, using data from Orange County, California, the researchers develop two methods for evaluating the quality of voter registration data as it changes over time: (a) generating audit data by repeated record linkage across periodic snapshots of a given database and monitoring it for sudden anomalous changes and (b) identifying duplicates via an efficient, automated duplicate detection, and tracking new duplicates and deduplication efforts over time.
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 study investigates the reliability of Florida’s voter registration files through a phone survey, asking respondents to verify their records. Authors find 17.7% of registrants fail to verify at least one identifying piece of information.
The 2020 State-by-State Compendium cites statutory requirements for serving as a poll worker in each state, including voter registration qualifications, age, residency, political affiliation, term requirements, compensation, and training, among others.
In this paper, authors explore the demographic and professional profiles of local election officials (LEOs), finding that most are female, white, over 55, and earning just over $50,000 a year. They also found that women were more likely to be paid less than their male counterparts. The paper presents additional findings related to job satisfaction and the role of election administration in facilitating female leadership.
This research develops and applies a method to estimate how many people voted twice in the 2012 presidential election. It estimates that about one in 4,000 voters cast two ballots, although an audit suggests that the true rate may be lower due to small errors in electronic vote records.