Resources

This paper provides a history of military voting by absentee ballot.

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.

Examining two states that have conducted a staggered rollout of mandatory vote-by-mail (Washington and Utah), this research finds that mandatory vote-by-mail slightly increases voter turnout but has no effect on election outcomes at various levels of government.

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.

In this research, 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. Voters who had to ask for assistance during the experiment also reported lower levels of confidence.

This research finds that expanding universal vote-by-mail has not dramatically advantaged either party historically.

This study of California focuses on (1) vote-by-mail signature verification processes and (2) notice and remedy procedures for unverified signatures.

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.

This research tests four explanations for how vote by mail voters choose to return their ballot, including the social rewards of voting, the costs of voting, trust in U.S. Postal Service and a preference to cast a ballot after campaigning ends. It finds supporting evidence for each explanation conditioned by prior history of voting.

The research finds that online voter registration systems in some states have vulnerabilities that allow adversaries to alter or effectively prevent a voter's registration. The analysis additionally finds that ballot tracking systems raise serious privacy questions surrounding ease of access to voter data.

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.

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.