Resources

In this MS thesis, Bernardo investigates how ballot-length metrics (words, questions, selections, pages, sheets, bilingual status) affect voting errors during the 2018 Rhode Island midterm election. He uses logistic regression models that control for municipal- and precinct-level demographics to analyze machine-based, human-machine interaction, and ballot-marking errors. Bernardo finds that longer ballots and urban precincts significantly increase the odds of voting errors, with implications for ballot design and jurisdiction-level oversight.

This report examines the tools state and local election officials use to maintain voter registration lists, which include Postal Service change of address forms and death records. Authors also review the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) efforts to ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and address election fraud in 2001–2017. During this time, the DOJ's Voting Section investigated 99 alleged violations of the Act and filed 14 cases.

In this MS thesis, Houghton develops a methodology to estimate voter arrival rates at polling stations using electronic poll book transaction logs. It includes service time observations collected through time studies during the 2018 Rhode Island midterm election across seven precincts. The study applies a Hidden Markov Model to infer voter arrival patterns from the check-in records. Finds that e-pollbook logs offer a scalable, less labor-intensive alternative to manual observation for estimating arrival rates.

The results of this study demonstrate that state online voter registration increases voter turnout. The difference-in-difference analysis shows that the states’ implementation of online voter registration increases the turnout of young voters by about 3 percentage points in presidential election years.

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 report surveys the public's views on election administration and reform, examining what voters value most in the voting experience and which changes they believe would improve it.

In this paper, authors develop models to estimate voter service times from voting machine log data, providing election officials with a scalable approach to analyze and improve polling place operations.

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 focuses on whether voters’ confidence is shaped by the racial or ethnic representation of poll workers and election staff.

This report provides practical recommendations for reducing polling place wait times by improving line measurement and the management of polling place resources.

The analysis finds notable discrepancies in how voter registration data are reported by localities into Mississippi’s Statewide Election Management System (SEMS), as well as discrepancies in how such data are reported by the state to the EAC’s Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS). This suggests that some localities face more challenges in managing records under a hybrid structure than others, which can disproportionately impact voters on Election Day, depending on where they reside.

The Voting Location and Outreach Tool is a publicly available tool that allows users to visualize data on the number, location, and historical use of Election Day vote centers and polling places, and to project equitable distributions of locations for upcoming elections.