Resources

This NCSL resource summarizes state election policy, administrative practices, or public communication guidance for lawmakers seeking to improve accuracy and confidence. It is relevant because direct voter experiences—such as wait times, poll-worker interactions, and access to services—shape confidence in election administration. For this dataset, it helps capture the most recent post-2020 trust environment and the continuing effects of election denial, security concerns, and polarization.

One-pager examining the benefits and shortcomings using videos to increase trust among voters.

This paper examines an unintended consequence of automatic voter registration: effects on party registration. Examining the state of Oregon, a state with back-end AVR, the analysis documents a significant decreases in partisan voter registration rates.

CEIR has surveyed states about voter registration database security every two years since 2018. These surveys have demonstrated widespread best practices in respondent states.

After discussions with election officials from Los Angeles County, Colorado, Georgia, and Texas, this project used messaging experiments with nearly 8,500 Americans following the 2022 U.S. midterm elections to measure the impact on trust. It found that state and local election officials can be strongly effective at increasing trust in their own state elections.

In this video, Thad Kousser explores the MIT Election Data + Science white paper about communicating with voters to build trust in elections.

After discussions with election officials from Los Angeles County, Colorado, Georgia, and Texas, this project used messaging experiments with nearly 8,500 Americans following the 2022 U.S. midterm elections to measure the impact on trust. It found that state and local election officials can be strongly effective at increasing trust in their own state elections.

Using data from Orange County, CA, this research finds that a variation of automatic voter registration that targets existing registrants as opposed to eligible nonregistrants—termed automatic reregistration (ARR)—increases turnout by 5.8 percentage points.

This academic article studies how messages from political elites influence public confidence in elections and acceptance of democratic norms. It is relevant to the dataset because it connects election rules, information environments, or administrative performance to public confidence and perceived legitimacy. For this dataset, it adds evidence on one of the recurring drivers of election trust: experience, information, partisanship, security, or institutional performance.

This paper argues state investment in voter education strengthens voter confidence by improving voter experiences and creating a culture of voter education, both of which facilitate transparency in elections.

Using a nationwide survey experiment conducted after the 2018 midterm elections this research shows that exposure to claims of voter fraud reduces confidence in electoral integrity, though not support for democracy itself.

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