Resources

This paper present a case study examining the implementation of Election Day vote centers, finding that successful adoption requires coordination across multiple elements of the election ecosystem.

In this paper, authors analyze access to vote by mail and other voting methods among Native voters. Authors begin by examining the historical, structural inequities in access to mail services on reservations and utilize data on precinct locations, post office locations, drop box locations, and Election Day voting sites to show how limited access to these sites and services adversely impacts Native voters when compared to both rural and urban Arizona voters.

State vote by mail policies have been expanded to facilitate voting by people with disabilities, but rely on voter signatures to verify an individual's identity. This report examines how signatures and signature comparison are used in elections, explores the uses and types of signatures in other contexts, and discusses alternatives being developed that could be used in elections.

The SMILE series are instructional videos, based on over 8,000 simulations, that help election officials visualize cost-effective resource allocations for polling locations that keep wait times under 30 minutes. The series covers polling place consolidation, new equipment integration, and allocation of accessible voting technology.

In this report, Stewart documents persistent racial and ethnic gaps in the in-person voting experience, including longer wait times and lower confidence among Black, Latino, and Asian American voters compared with white voters.

Accessible vote-by-mail is critical in enabling voters with disabilities to cast their ballot privately and independently. This report reviews current elections offices' practices in administering accessible vote by mail and considers their innovations and current challenges.

In this paper, authors examine how polling place closures following the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision affected voter wait times during Georgia's 2016 presidential election. Using queueing theory and empirical data, it quantifies the impact of consolidating polling locations on wait times, with particular attention to how closures affected different communities. Authors provide evidence linking post-Shelby polling place reductions to measurably longer lines.

In this paper, authors develop an algorithm that can reduce racial disparities in polling place access by suggesting improved placements for polling places from a list of identified public locations at the state level.

This report examines barriers impacting voting access among groups such as people with disabilities, young voters, Native Americans, and rural residents. It puts forth several reforms such as expanded vote by mail policies and implementation of plain language in voter materials to address these barriers. Authors also highlight current research gaps and areas where further research is necessary.

Grimmer and Hersh assert that contemporary election reforms that are purported to increase or decrease turnout have negligible effects on election outcomes. They find that election policies have small effects on outcomes because they tend to target small shares of the electorate, have a small effect on turnout, and/or affect voters who are relatively balanced in their partisanship. These effects are not the result of countermobilization from political parties.

This document provides guidance and resources for how to test voting systems against the usability and accessibility requirements in the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) 2.0. The primary audiences for this guide are the voting system test laboratory organizations who perform certification testing.

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.