Resources

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.

Using this tool, NCSL tracks and classifies voter ID laws across all 50 states along two dimensions: whether they require voters to present an ID and whether the requirement is strict or non-strict.

This paper employs discrete-event simulation to model Milwaukee's in-person voting system during COVID-19. It reveals that poll worker shortages, social distancing measures, and PPE requirements can lead to very long voter wait times. The evaluation considers various design strategies to reduce pandemic-related effects, such as adding check-in locations, expanding early voting, and preventing the consolidation of polling sites.

This research finds even in the absence of elite claims of vote fraud, authors see strong and immediate shifts in mass views. Once the results became clear, those who supported the losing side became significantly less likely to trust that votes were counted correctly or to be satisfied with the election process, while trust and support for the process rose from pre-to post-election for voters on the winning side.

This report examines poll workers in the current election environment, including recruitment challenges, training needs, and the role poll workers play in shaping the voter experience and in building public confidence in elections.

In this paper, authors provide recommendations from disability voting rights advocates on how to improve the physical accessibility of polling locations and the usability of accessible voting equipment.

The past two decades have seen a decline in trust in American elections that has primarily been driven by a slow but steady decline in trust among Republicans. Surprisingly, the increased polarization in trust most recently has been due more to Democrats suddenly becoming more trusting. Election officials must continue to try to overcome attacks on trust in the system, but it is unclear how long they can sustain the legal system guaranteeing free and fair elections without broad-based public trust in how elections are administered.

This paper examines whether minority and Democratic-leaning voters in Florida receive lower poll worker staffing. Using data from multiple elections, authors find evidence of partisan disparities in staffing levels, with Democratic-trending counties receiving worse service relative to Republican-trending counties. They apply operations management methods to document systemic resource allocation inequities in polling place operations.

This survey / research report focuses on election misinformation, fraud narratives, or public misperceptions and their effects on confidence in U.S. elections. It is relevant because beliefs about fraud and exposure to misleading claims are central mechanisms through which confidence in election outcomes rises or falls. For this dataset, it adds evidence on one of the recurring drivers of election trust: experience, information, partisanship, security, or institutional performance.

This paper challenges the HAVA minimum of one ADA-compliant device per polling location as insufficient and recommends that local election officials determine the number of accessible devices based on the proportion of voters with disabilities in their jurisdiction.

This research finds that explicit cues about rigged voting machines increase belief in such theories, especially when the cues target the opposing political party. Explicit cues also decrease confidence in elections regardless of the targeted party, but they have no effect on satisfaction with democracy or support for election security funding.

In this PhD dissertation, Schmidt introduces optimization and simulation models to support the design and operation of resilient in-person election voting systems. Three core contributions: (1) a discrete-event simulation of pandemic-resilient polling-place design, with a case study of Milwaukee, WI; (2) the Polling Location Consolidation Problem (PLCP), an integer programming model applied to Richland County, SC; and (3) an optimization model for ballot drop box siting in Milwaukee.